Digitising the Victoria County History: first new volume added to British History Online  

In this blog post, Dr Ruth Slatter (Co-General Editor of the Victoria County History and the VCH Digitisation Project Manager) celebrates the publication of new digitised VCH material on British History Online.  

With the generous support of the Marc Fitch Fund and the IHR, the Victoria County History (VCH) central office and IHR Library and Digital teams are currently in the process of digitising more VCH Big Red Books. This will make the place-based histories published in these volumes freely available online via British History Online (BHO). You can read more about how we are approaching the digitisation process in a couple of blog posts written by our 2024 VCH IHR summer intern Anne-Marie Harvatt. See part 1 here and part 2 here.  

We are now excited to share that the first volume from this round of digitisation has been published on BHO: Stafford Volume 6 (1979). 

Although still a work in progress, this digitised volume highlights the huge benefits of making VCH material freely and widely available via BHO. The volume includes detailed histories of Staffordshire’s agriculture, education and religion from the medieval period through to the late twentieth century. Extensively drawing from regional and national archival sources, it combines statistical, administrative, and personal sources to reflect on subjects as diverse as the living conditions of farm laborers, religious communities’ decisions to establish new schools, Staffordshire’s local government structures, and much more.  

In the coming months, further updates will be made to this volume on BHO. They will make it easier for users to identify chapters’ authors, illustrations’ origins and how this digital version of a physical VCH volume was produced. Work will also be done to correct small typos and formatting issues in this volume. Further volumes from the VCH’s iconic Big Red Book series will be published throughout the 2025 – 2026 academic year. So keep your eyes peeled!  

Dr Ruth Slatter is Lecturer in Historic Environment and Knowledge Exchange Manager at the Institute of Historical Research.

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