People will be able to access archives dating back to the sixteenth century after the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre secured a grant worth more than £22,000.
The £22,700 grant, awarded by the National Cataloguing Grants programme, will help archivists catalogue the historic archives of the Earls of Radnor. These include letters by George Washington, Horatio Nelson and Queen Elizabeth I.
Other exciting finds in the collection include several sixteenth century letters from Thomas Cromwell, the senior official of Henry VIII responsible for the dissolution of the monasteries. The collection also includes a letter on behalf of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife, about the birth of Prince Edward (afterwards Edward VI) c1537.
Much of the collection is made up of interesting records of the life and work on the family’s estates in Wiltshire, Berkshire and Kent, from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. These will be of great interest to anyone researching either local or family history. The aim is to catalogue the archives from April 2011 making them available to all online.
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