Recorder's Report 2010 AGM

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2009/2010

This has been the first year of the Debden Local History Recorders Group as a fully fledged organisation with a Constitution and regular committee meetings.

It has been a very exciting and fruitful year when the Group acquired on loan, permanent or otherwise, a substantial number of local historic records, both paper and photographic and managed to transcribe a sizeable proportion of them in order to make them available to the general public.

Listed below are some of our activities and areas of work undertaken in the last year.

History exhibitions:

In March 2009 we took part in the Recorders of Uttlesford History 'History Fair' in the Town Hall in Saffron Walden where we had a stand representing Debden.

In December 2009 we took part in the Historic Debden Exhibition in the Parish Church, an event that was immensely successful and where we recruited twenty five new members.

Documents and other historic papers

Projects undertaken during the last year are as follows:

The contents of an old recipe book compiled by Mrs Francis in the late 19th and early 20th century were transcribed into a Word document. (Book was kindly loaned by Cherry Vernon)

A handwritten paper describing the various Debden Charities was transcribed into a Word document (the source of this document is still not clear as several copies have been circulated)

The journal of a Debden resident (now possibly believed to be the Miller) compiled in the second half of the 19th century has been transcribed into a Word document. (journal kindly loaned by Mr S Payton)

The originals of all the above documents were photocopied or scanned by members, then transcribed by a professional paid typist and subsequently checked by members for accuracy.

Photographs

Mica Brown and Elisabeth Blackie have been scanning into digital copies approximately 40 Old Debden photographs and these have been made available on the Village website. This is an ongoing project as many more photographs are being made available to the Group all the time

Parish Pump archives

The process of transferring old copies of the Parish Pump onto the Debden website has been started and the archives now contain all past editions from August 2007 to June 2010.

Oral history

Oral history is a very important aspect of history recording as it allows us to keep a record of voices, accents and experiences of Debden people. This project has been led by Virginia Chapman and Roger Forster and the Group purchased a sophisticated recording machine to interview some of our older village residents. One interview has already taken place and it was conducted by Virginia Chapman.

Original research

Henry Blackie discovered the identity of most of the individuals that were buried in the Parish Church Vault in the 18th and 19th century. A summary of his research was published in the December edition of the Parish Pump.

Henry has also undertaken a study of the Censuses from 1841 to 1901 and has produced some very interesting data and insight into the life of the Village in the 19th century.

Website

The Committee have looked at the possibility of having a dedicated website for the Debden Recorders Group, but the conclusion we came to is that as there is a very good new website for the village, recently revamped and upgraded by Ben Griffin who has offered the Group our own “Local History” page within it, we should accept Ben Griffin’s generous offer. .

As you can see we have been pretty busy during our first year. There is no room in this report to mention the many instances in which the Group has been contacted by members of the public for help on topics ranging from 'Coade Stone' in the Parish Church to help in identifying their relatives from old photographs. This is why I am keen to emphasize that all members can contribute in any way they wish, either by actively working on projects, scanning, photocopying, transcribing etc or by being alert to the possibility of archive materials or old photos being made available to the Group.

On the subject of an organised programme of talks and outings, some members have indicated that they would like for these to happen on a regular basis, so the plan is to review the situation and look at the possibility of expanding our sphere of activity.

I would like to thank Jill, Roger and Virginia, our Committee members, for their help and support to me during our first year and especially in producing a viable Constitution and in the organisation of our stands at the exhibitions we attended. I would also like to send a special thank you to the Recorders of Uttlesford History and Zofia Everett of the Essex Record Office Access Point for their guidance and support to our Group and for the loan of their equipment.

Elisabeth Blackie

Debden Local History Recorder