Monday 23 November 2015



“What information do you have about my parish?”
Parish files

The policy in Southwark Diocese is that parishes look after their own parish archives within their parish. The Diocesan Archive aims to advise and support parishes in this by developing guidance on record keeping, answering questions, visiting and offering advice etc.

The Diocesan Archives does, however, have a large collection of records relating to parishes – on average, one large box file per parish. These are not the parish records themselves, rather the records of the interactions between the Archbishop and the parish. These boxes can be of great value to those researching the history of their parish or local community.

Parish histories

These boxes contain a great mixture of items. They were created originally as a working filing system and anything that was created or received at Archbishop’s House in relation to a parish could be filed in them. This system continues today and once the material in the working filing system reaches ten years old it is evaluated to see if it has any long-term value. If it has, it is passed to the archive to be added to the parish file.

Arrival of the celebrant, 7 July 1935, Canterbury parish


The main group records that can be found in parishes files are:

1.      Visitation forms and pastoral statistics

2.      Correspondence on many issues

3.      Parish histories

Other records that can be found include wills, photographs, maps, plans, legal agreements, financial accounts, information on parish priests, information about the church e.g. which relic is in the alter etc. 

Visitation forms
To find out what records exist for your parish, please contact the archive. You are welcome to visit to view the parish records though please be aware that any sensitive material or material subject to data protection restrictions will not be made available.

While the parish records are kept together by parish, there is no listing or catalogue of the contents of the boxes. Over the next few years, we hope to be able to catalogue these files in greater detail and to ensure that they are housed in archival packaging so that they can be preserved for the long-term. 

Correspondence

Monday 12 October 2015

 An Interesting Find



I recently discovered, in the archive, six original photographs taken at the time of the liberation of Bergen-BelsenConcentration Camp in 1945. These were entitled, “Photographs taken by a friend of Mgr D.P. Wall. Belsen Concentration Camp. German soldiers compelled under an armed guard of British troops to bury the dead.” Mgr Denis P Wall (ordained 1944, died 1992) was a priest of the Diocese and we can only speculate why these photographs ended up in the Diocesan Archive. Perhaps whoever took them recognised their importance and wanted to put them somewhere that they would be well looked after. The images captured scenes of piles of skeletal bodies being buried (I have not included the images in this blog due to their disturbing content). 

The Diocesan Archive was not the best home for these photographs. While we could care for them, they did not fit in our collecting policy nor would researchers think to look in a diocesan archive for images of the Holocaust. I wished to place them in an archive which collected records of the Holocaust where they could be seen and understood in their correct context. I contacted Bergen-Belsen Documentation Centre which is located at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial in Germany. They expressed interest in the photographs so I sent them to them. I was delighted to get the following response from one of their archivists, Klaus Tätzler, and to learn that these photographs had contributed further to their understanding of the happenings at Bergen-Belsen:

"The photographs are much more important than I expected ... these contain new perspectives and two of them show burial at a place in the women's camp which we did not know before. I shall put them into our photograph collection."




Women survivors in Bergen-Belsen, April 1945

Wednesday 9 September 2015



Southwark priests (and family history)





About half of the enquiries received by the Archive are from family history researchers. The Archive doesn’t actually hold any parish registers – these are held by local parish churches – so many of these enquiries are sent to the relevant parish (parish contact details can be found: http://www.rcsouthwark.co.uk/parlink.html). However, for those interested in finding out about a family member who was a priest, or indeed those doing research on priests for other reasons, the Archive can be a great source of information.



Personnel files
Personnel files (in non-archival and archival packaging)

The Archive holds personnel files for all deceased priests. While researchers cannot look through these themselves, the Archivist can use them to find information on the researcher’s behalf. These files, particularly the older ones, are not uniform in character. Some are very large and some very small. However, they can often provide a wealth of information. They can contain correspondence between the priest and Bishop, biographical information, information on the parishes that he served in, an obituary etc.

Information card from a priest's file

Occasionally, no personnel file exists for a particular priest. In these cases, the Archive has other sources of information which can be used:



Southwark Catholic Directory

The Southwark Catholic Directory is published annually (since 1929) and lists all the priests in the Diocese alphabetically and gives their address. The address helps to identify the parish that a priest served in (parishes are also listed alphabetically with a list of their priests). In this way a priest can be traced from ordination to retirement and beyond. 

Alphabetical list of priest from the Southwark Directory


Catholic Directory

The annual Catholic Directory lists all the priests in England and Wales alphabetically with their addresses. It also lists all the parishes in England and Wales and the priests who were serving there. This Directory can be used to find priests who moved from the Diocese or priests from a religious order who served in a Southwark church for a time.



The Southwark Record


The Southwark Record, the Diocese’s monthly newsletter, ran from 1922 to 1968 and published obituaries for deceased priests. It often contained other news about priests such as the celebration of jubilees and some priests contributed articles.



Obituary from the Southwark Record


Parish files

Searching in the parish files of a priest’s parishes (again, the contents of these are not accessible to researchers but the Archivist can search them on a researcher’s behalf) will often uncover further information about a priest and his time at a particular church.




Anyone who is interested in finding out biographical information about a priest should contact the Archive giving as many details are as known about the priest.



Jenny Delves: archives@rcsouthwark.co.uk