Our Society belongs to the West Yorkshire Archives Community Archive Network which meets about three times a year. The purpose of the network group is to offer guidance, support and training for community archives across the region, many of which are run by volunteers. Although our Society does not have a physical archive (apart from documents relating to our own history) we are part of the group and have acted as hosts in the past. We joined the group at their most recent meeting on 19th March, which was hosted by the Saltaire Collection: https://www.saltairecollection.org/
Sue Steel, one of the volunteers, told us about the history of Saltaire and introduced us to the collection which includes deeds and documents, porcelain and clothes relating to Sir Titus Salt and his family, Sir James Roberts who purchased the mill from him, and Jonathan Silver who in 1987 was instrumental in saving the mill for future generations. The collection is held by Shipley College in trust, but is presently running out of space and is hoping to move into new premises soon to be built.
Following the talk Sue Steel provided a walk round Saltaire, explaining the history of the various streets, the Victoria Hall, the Exhibition building, the almshouses, the hospital, the college and schools.
Unfortunately, there was insufficient time for each of the different groups to explain what they had been doing since the group last met – so, sadly, we did not have the opportunity to report on our Centenary events.