The archives of Central England Quakers are held by Birmingham Archives and Collections at the Library of Birmingham, and project archivist Eleanor Woodward has been busy cataloguing the many items, to allow them to be searched: online and in hard copy at the Wolfston Centre.

The Birmingham and Warwickshire Quakers cataloguing project was funded by a grant from the National Archives and a bequest from a member of Bull Street Quaker Meeting.

Eleanor says:

The Central England Area Meeting archive is one of the most important collections to have come into the archives in recent years, particularly when combined with the personal, business and family papers of local Quakers already held by Birmingham Archives and Collections, such as those of the Cadbury, Sturge, Southall, Albright, Galton, Pumphrey, Gibbins and Lloyd families. It is of interest to those wanting to research religious history, trace the progression of Quakerism in Birmingham and the West Midlands, or uncover their Quaker ancestry.”

Read more on The Iron Room blog.

And watch this space for a flavour of what’s in the archives: as Eleanor has kindly allowed us to repost her blog articles written as she was working on the cataloguing project.  You can read the first article, and more will appear on the website and newsfeed in 2018.