The Archives of Great Expectations: Heritage Lottery Fund Promotion Poster  

The Heritage Lottery Fund and the Archives of Great Expectations

On Wednesday 7th January 2009 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant of up to £154,500 to the Friends of Medway Archives and Local Studies Centre (FOMA) for an exciting new project which will make available for research for the first time the contents of 500 boxes of the Rochester City Archives – the so-called Archives of Great Expectations.

The Rochester City Archives form the biggest archival collection in the Medway area and access to it will enhance the understanding of many aspects of British history. Rochester and its Diocese has long associations with London and the famous author, Charles Dickens, who lived at nearby Gad’s Hill, included the Kentish city in many of his works. The archives cover the period 1227 to 1974 and include maps, photographs, building plans, heraldic and manorial records, records of land use, title deeds, rate books, records of trade and industry, public health, and transport. In short, a gold-mine for historians. Click here for the original press release.

Only FOMA members are eligible to apply as volunteers on this exciting project. Details of how to join FOMA can be found here.

Please scroll down for the latest news.

 
 
     

February 2010

Valerie Rouland joins the team!

FOMA is delighted to announce the appointment of Valerie Rouland as Project Archivist to begin work to catalogue, conserve and make available for research the contents of the 500 boxes of Rochester City Archives, the Archives of Great Expectations.

Valerie is from the northwest of France, having spent most of her childhood in Normandy on her parents’ farm. She read History at the University of Tours and in 1995, thanks to an Erasmus grant, went to study at the University of Leeds, undertaking research for a dissertation on 18th century religious life in Yorkshire. Valerie then worked for several organisations in the UK, from the Wordsworth Trust in Cumbria to the National Archives at Kew. In 2004, after attending the archive course at the University of Liverpool, she took up her first professional post for the Cumbria Archive Service at Barrow-in-Furness, followed by a contract with Durham University, cataloguing probate records of the Diocese of Durham. Valerie is looking forward to learning the history of Rochester and ploughing through its archives!