Whitby Museum 'treasure trove' reaches wider audience thanks to lottery funding

The idea is to increase usage and awareness of the museum’s library and archive collections by reaching out to the community.

A new Archivist, Charles Graffius, was appointed and Claire Marris became the Archive Development Officer.

Charles’ last position was at a convent where he had the task of bringing the records up-to-date of the disabled schools they had run, in line with modern data protection and personal information law.

There has been a recent update to the collections system – now using Axiell.

Charles said: “I am proud to be the Archivist of the wonderful collections here at the Whitby Museum and hope in the next three years to organise the archives to its best possible level and to train volunteers to keep the system going in the future.”

Claire ran a School Library in a Nottinghamshire Secondary School before taking on this role.

One of her proudest accolades is achieving a place on the Honours List with the School Librarian Association.

“My role is to bring the archives to the Whitby community by means of outreach sessions, social media and in-house events,” she said.

"Who doesn’t enjoy a little bit of historical gossip – it’s all here.”

Over the past four months Claire has been delivering outreach sessions at five local care establishments and a community group – The Mayfield, Peregrine House, Jubilee House, Whitby Court Care, Town & Country Care and Dementia Forward at the Coliseum.

She has delved into the library and archives, mingling and conversing with the volunteers, compiling presentations on topics including World War II, Herring Fishing in Whitby and It’s a Whitby Christmas.

These sessions have taken residents on trips down memory lane, sparked discussion and personal experiences.

Claire added: “One resident entertained us with his story about the rations van that used to call round called ‘squeaky Thornton’ and memories of three evacuees that had stayed with his family during World War II.

"Many were reminded and shared their memory of the spectacle that was the herring fleets that used to descend on Whitby.”

She has also interacted with schools in the area.

Liz Orland, Headteacher at Egton C of E School, brought 13 years five and six pupils for a visit.

The pupils completed an orienteering task, to familiarise themselves with the library, then organised into three groups and rotated three activities which included searching family members on the digital Whitby Gazette, a tour in the Archives with Charles, looking at old newspapers that featured the school and Rob, one of the museum volunteers, introduced the pupils to the book cleaning procedure.

Emma Knaggs, a volunteer from Whitby Sixth Form, was also on hand taking photographs.

Bidi, Whitby Museums storyteller, entertained the children with stories based on school items gathered personally and from the museum including the Truants Clog!

Claire gave Liz Orland the Egton School archive resources that they had collected to support their 150-year school celebrations.

Claire added: “It’s important for the younger generation to be made aware of this amazing resource.”

It is hoped more school tours will take place.