covering October 2023 to October 2024
This report was originally distributed to members of the Bristol Record Society as a .docx email attachment in October 2024
1 The Bristol Record Society’s (BRS) Annual General Meeting will be held at Bristol Archives on 6 November 2024 and will be a blended event with some members attending in person and others doing so virtually by means of Zoom.
2 The Council met twice during the period covered by this report, and in September 2024 was made up of the following members: Jonathan Barry (General Editor), Richard Coates, Sophie Evans (Heritage Development Librarian, Bristol City Council), Jonathan Harlow, Evan Jones (General Editor for Digital Publications), Anne Lovejoy, Roger Leech (General Editor), Peter Malpass, Benjamin Pohl, Steve Poole, John Reeks, Richard Stone (Treasurer), Kathleen Thompson (Secretary). Anne Lovejoy, archivist at the Theatre Collection, University of Bristol joined the Council on 17 June 2024. The City Archivist, Allie Dillon, resigned as a trustee of the Society and member of the Council on 22 July. Council conveyed the Society’s thanks to her for her contribution while she held the post of City Archivist.
3 There are currently 99 individual members of the Society, of whom 3 are honorary life members. There is no longer an institutional membership, but 44 institutions are in regular communication with the Society and are invoiced on a volume-by-volume basis.
4 This report covers the society’s activities during this period to address its charitable objectives, which are:
- To encourage the preservation and the study of historical documents relating to the history of the City of Bristol.
- To promote, improve, and maintain public education in and appreciation of the significance of such documents and other historical and archive material.
Publications in the main series
5 A publication was launched at the delayed 2023 Annual Meeting on 21 February 2024:
Graffin Prankard’s Letterbook, edited by Mary Miles (Bristol Record Society, volume 77, 2024)
6 A second volume is scheduled for publication in time for the annual meeting:
The Correspondence of William Cole of Bristol with Sir Robert Southwell and Edward Southwell 1683-1701, edited by Anthony Turner (Bristol Record Society volume 78, 2024).
7 A further publication is in the press:
The Ledger of Thomas Howell: Draper of London and Merchant of Bristol and Seville, edited by Heather Dalton (Bristol Record Society, volume 79, 2024).
8 Proposals for new volumes continue to arrive, providing the Society with a tentative publication schedule until 2027 and the Council is considering plans for the publication of a centenary volume in 2029.
9 The Council is sorry to report that the Society’s printer, 4Word has now closed, and as a token of our esteem and thanks has extended an honorary life membership to John Roost. We have engaged Bristol Books as designer of our volumes, which are being printed by 4Edge, a company that has previously worked with John Roost.
E-publication
10 E-publication on the BRS website is now a major part of the Society’s programme. Full details of the Society’s e-publication programme during this period have been circulated to members by email and are available on the website. It has been decided to reduce the boundary for full online access to our publications to two calendar years to meet research publication requirements for Open Access with a view to securing proposals from scholars who might otherwise be discouraged from offering their work to us.
