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Just Catalogued February 2025

Posted in Behind the Scenes on 03 Feb 2025

An absolute nightmare

We were pleased to receive a first ever deposit of records from Didcot Town (formerly Parish) Council, 1894-2016 (CPC47).  There are no minutes, but there are some interesting files of notices of Parish Meetings, 1935-1973, which include additional motions, mostly relating to housing issuesThese include a petition for the council to consider the provision of accommodation for 'homeless and overcrowded people' in Government Camps, October 1946; and a request by a group of electors for a meeting ‘to discuss & protest against the refusal of the Divisional Food Officers to increase the Oils and Fats allocation to Didcot' in December 1947.  Housing shortages were also the subject of much of the Parish Clerk’s correspondence, with a 1948 letter from local MP Ralph (later Lord) Glyn saying 'the housing position at Didcot is an absolute nightmare to me', due to opposition to building work within a considerable distance of the Atomic Energy Research establishment at Harwell, and referring to 'appalling' overcrowding and discomfort for locals.  Also preserved for posterity is the condolence book for those who lost their lives during the demolition of Didcot Power Station on 23 February 2016.

Didcot Coronation Souvenir Brochure, 1953 ref. CPC47/18/21Sewers and rationing

Newly deposited records of Finchampstead Parish Council, 1946-2016 include material on the building of the local police station,1946-1953; sewer plans; papers on the Silver Jubilee of 1977 (CPC56). Records added to the archive of Bucklebury Parish Council relate mainly to Bucklebury Cemetery, 1950-2023 (CPC28)They do not include burial registers, but receipts for fees do record the names of those buried. Another really interesting item is an emergency ration record for most of the parish, compiled by Major Mackinnon, Voluntary Food Organiser 1942-1945Each house in the Chapel Row, Church, Marlston and Three Crowns areas is listed, with the names and number of the inhabitants, and the names of the grocers, butcher, baker and milk supplier with which the household was registered for rationing purposesIt also noted whether the household had a week's reserve suppliesAdditional Parish Council records have also come in from Bray, 1996-2020 (CPC23)Burghfield, 1958-2021 (CPC29); Cold Ash, 1972-2013 (CPC130D); Crowthorne, 2009-2022 (CPC102B); Hermitage, 2002-2014 (CPC62B); Hurley, 2002-2019 (CPC72); Midgham, 1927-2018 (CPC130C); Twyford, 2021-2024 (CPC73C); and Yattendon, 1984-2016 (CPC159).

Rationing register, 1942-1945, ref. CPC28/18/18
Compelled to wear charity coats

The records of Hampstead Norreys Parish Council, 1894-1988 (CPC62) include the council’s earliest minutes. At the Parish Assembly of 1901 beneficiaries of Emery's Charity complained of ‘being compelled to wear their Great Coats [given by the trustees] and sitting in a particular place in Church and whether they could not attend any other place of worship. The Clerk said that the will stated they must attend the Parish Church and hear Divine Service, but he (as Churchwarden) denied that they had ever been requested to sit in a particular place and there was no reason if they felt too hot why they should not take the Great Coats off in Church'. In May 1910 there was a vote of condolence on the death of King Edward VII, referring to 'the serious loss we and all the country had sustained by the death of our good King, for he had done every thing he could for the welfare of his subjects and Country'. In September 1919 the council decided to erect a German gun (captured in the last advance of 1918) in the churchyard, although it was later moved to a secular site. In 1940 a landing ground was constructed in the parish for the Air Ministry, and perhaps surprisingly, we see opposition to air raid warnings. There are also records of Hampstead Norris Memorial Hall.

Village halls

We have also received records of a number of other community halls: Padworth Village Hall and Playing Field Management Committee, 1952-2013 (D/EX2749); Shaw cum Donnington Parish Hall, 1912-1954 (D/EX2837); St John's Village Hall, Stratfield Mortimer, 1894-1962 (D/EX2841); and Watchfield Village Hall, 1975-1984 (D/EX2687). Anglican parish records from Ashbury include records relating to the village’s Jubilee Hall, 1935-1943 (D/P9).

Women sit and stand at a sewing group, C.1920s, ref. D/MS1/3A/13
Methodists

A significant collection of records has been deposited by Burghfield Common Primitive Methodist Church, 1923-2023 (D/MS26). We were also pleased to receive some lovely photographs from the Oxford Road Wesleyan Church in Reading, ranging from c.1873 to the 1980s (D/MS1); an example above shows the sewing group.  Other newly deposited photographs also show early 20th century Methodists and their activities, relating to Reading Wesleyan Circuit, 1920s-1932 (D/MC1); and the Elm Park Hall Women’s Own outing, c.1922 (D/MS56).

People sit in a boat, c.1922, ref. D/MS56/3A/6
We have also received the 1929 yearbook for Reading Primitive Methodist Circuit (D/MC2); and additional records from Windsor Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1877-2010 (D/MS9); Maidenhead High Street Methodist Church, 2009-2019 (D/MS10); Cheapside Wesleyan Methodist Church, Sunninghill, 1890-1930 (D/MS17); and Eton Wick Methodist Church, 2014-2022 (D/MS110).

New registers for family history

Crowthorne Baptist Church, ref. D/N56/9/2/3
Spencers Wood: marriages, 2003-2019 (D/P194)

Burghfield Common Methodist Church: baptisms, 1966-2018; marriages, 1973-2023 (D/MS26)

Crowthorne Baptist Church: marriages, 1929-2011 (D/N65)