Aberlour Archives Revealed
The University of Stirling Archives has been awarded a grant of £26,954 from the Archives Revealed Fund to catalogue the archives of Aberlour Children’s Charity (January – June 2022)
The University of Stirling Archives and Aberlour Children’s Charity are working together to open up access to Aberlour’s archives which preserve a detailed record of their work caring for children across Scotland. The funding from the Archives Revealed Programme will improve access for those with direct experience of care and will also provide new opportunities for the wider research community. The project will support current research at the University into creating a more inclusive approach to recordkeeping in the care sector. It will also support the upcoming 150th anniversary of the establishment of the original Aberlour Orphanage, the archive providing a key resource for a period of celebration, reflection and analysis. The project will run from January to August 2022.
“The archives will make a significant difference to individuals with a personal connection to the organisation through direct experience of growing up in the orphanage or through having a family member raised there. They will enable us to supplement and enhance our responses to individual’s requests for access to their records in line with data protection, with photographs, contemporary magazine articles or other information about life in the orphanage. Records of the lives of children in the current care system are much more comprehensive than in the past and we aim, through these archives, to enhance knowledge and insight for past residents and for their families.”
Sally Ann Kelly, Chief Executive, Aberlour Children’s Charity
Archives Revealed is a partnership programme between The UK National Archives, The Pilgrim Trust and the Wolfson Foundation, and is the only funding stream in the UK dedicated to cataloguing and unlocking archives. The project is also supported by Aberlour, Scotland’s Children’s Charity. Updates on the progress of the project will be posted on our Culture on Campus blog.
Update (August 2022): The Archives Revealed Project has now been completed and an online catalogue of the collection is now available which provides detailed descriptions of the contents of the collection and links to digitised copies of a range of historical publications produced by Aberlour.
