Projects Funded
Over the years the Friends of The National Archives have funded numerous projects involving:
- Conservation, digitisation, cataloguing and indexing of documents
- Education and outreach projects
- Family days
- Events and conferences
- Specialist equipment
- Films, radio, art, drawing and drama that use original documents
Our Trustees are always keen to develop innovative ways in which we can support the Archives.
2026
Sensory Back Packs
To provide back packs for use by neurodivergent visitors and visitors with higher support needs to improve their time at TNA.
Young People’s Film Project
Young People’s Film project: Secrets and Spies – Reconstructing the Narrative.
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for the TNA Reception area
2025
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for TNA Reception area.
2024
Great Escapes Young People Project
Working with film-maker Nigel Kellaway and a group of around fifteen young people each summer (aged 16-19yrs) to create stop-motion animation films inspired by records in the National Archives.
More details about the project can be found here.
Sensing the Archives
Sensing the Archives is a new workshop designed specifically for blind and partially sighted students, to be offered by the Education & Outreach department.
Details can be found here.
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for TNA Reception area.
Gresford Colliery Disaster 90th Anniversary
Provide copies and/or facsimiles of specific documents relating to the Gresford mining disaster, for use by the Friends of the Gresford Colliery Disaster Memorial (FGCDM) in an exhibition and with school groups (the latter on an on-going basis).
Details can be found here and a BBC story here.
2023
SEND Inventions
Pilot for a longer-term SEND (Special Educational Needs) project on the theme of ‘inventions’ to coincide with the Inventions Exhibition.
17th Century Prize Papers: a new source for maritime history
Funding to help examine the newly-discovered papers for the 1650s-1700, to add them to the previously-identified Prize Papers in HCA32 and HCA 30, making them ready to enter the digitisation process.
More Than a Uniform: celebrating 75 years of the NHS
Working with Anstee Bridge to give young people the opportunity to help design an exhibition at TNA.
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for TNA Reception area.
2022
The Home Office Papers and Ireland, 1793-1803: From Rebellion to Union
Survey to be undertaken of HO 100/39-119. Funding to be used to pay for experienced Post-Doctorial researcher with specialism in 18 and 19 century Irish-British history, for 6 months.
Young People’s Summer Film project: LGBTQ+ history in the archives
The cost of Nigel Kellaway’s development and delivery of the project, plus for two media assistants to support.
Details of the project can be found here, including the films.
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for TNA Reception area.
2021
Lordship, Identities and Communities: The Duchy of Lancaster’s Medieval Estates – Cataloguing the Great Cowcher Books
Funding to calendar the Great Cowcher Books (2433 numbered charters and additional forest plea) plus condition and conservation report preliminary to digitisation. TNA record series DL 42/1-2
Rebels in the Records film-making project
Online version of film-making project working with 14 young people using original documents.
Details of the project can be found here.
Council Housing Online for Share
Online delivery of workshop to engage learned disabled members of Share, an organisation in Wandsworth, based upon local history and the Council Housing Movement.
Your Unfortunate Servants
Making of a digitally recorded version of specially written play by Dominic Green, ‘Writer in Residence’ at TNA. Based on Poor Law Records. Joint funded with Nottingham Trent University.
Art and Archives
Three events looking at developing the nurturing and inspiration of creative practice with TNA collections. Costs towards four artists, in collaboration with the Art360 Foundation.
2020
Mental Health on Record Film Premiere
Funding towards £150 total cost to support film premiere event.
Details of the project can be found here.
BT Designs Africa – Working
Funding to commission a film-maker to showcase some of the West African textiles found in BT52 Design Registers, as well as to record reactions the designs stimulate in contemporary audiences. Project on hold due to Covid
Shell-Shock, Syphilis and Self-Inflicted Wounds: Injury, disease and discipline in the British Army during WW1
Funding for work on 24-30 volumes of MH106, plus training four volunteers to complete the project over following five years.
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for TNA Reception area.
2019
Send work
Phase 4 – Pilot outreach delivery of workshops to SEND schools.
Royal Navy WW1 Lives at Sea
Ongoing project with a live website hosted by the Nat Maritime Museum. Funding required to maintain management software. See Magna, May 2017.
Digitisation of British Library finding aids for registered designs
Digitisation of volumes held at BL with view to making them searchable using OCR software.
Summer Lecture Series
Provide funding for support costs for the third presentation of the Summer Lecture Series: State+Society: Cultures of Communication.
Mental Health on Record
Film-making project using original documents to explore mental health. Partnered with Richmond Borough Mind Charity.
London Volunteers in Museums Awards
Provide funding for prizes to be awarded at the event.
A Day Conference on Early Modern Litigation and Local History
With Kent Local History Society, refocusing on work of Louis Knafla. Funding for events management and security, and travel/accommodation for speakers. Due to Covid rescheduled
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for TNA Reception area.
2018
Early Tudor Family Day
Family day of events including talks, battlefield re-enactment and falconry.
Holding History – Film-making Project
Follow on from the Somme and Suffrage Tales film projects. Students drew inspiration from the 1000 years of documented history at TNA with a professional film-maker.
Suffragette vs. The State Exhibition
Funding towards purchase of an AV Touch Screen to be cited in Keeper’s Gallery.
Armistice & Legacy
Follow on from Piety, Plunder and Protest project in 2017. Students attended workshop to interpret centenary of Armistice through drawings. Funding for research & script writing, and workshop delivery.
See Magna, May 2019.
Completing the Calendar of Gascon Rolls Online
Conclusion to the long-running academic research and transcription project of TNA series C 61. See http://www.gasconrolls.org/en/
Summer Lecture Series
Supporting the second annual presentation of the Summer Lecture Series: Mapping Movement: People, place and power.
Independent Cinema Office
Hire of films depicting British life from late Victorian era onwards, with related document display.
Christmas Tree
Annual gift of a Christmas tree to TNA for the atrium.
2017
Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes: The Human Body in The National Archives
Workshop for families with children aged 5-11, exploring the theme of the human body to celebrate Science week.
Piety, Plunder and Protest: Chronicles of Dissolution
500th Anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. A-level students interpreting original records on Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries through drawings. See Magna, November 2017.
The Rat Who Ate History
Working with Theatre Tots to develop an interactive and sensory performance tailored to the needs of SEND students. Also involves document research to anchor Theatre Tots with TNA and its collection.
Purchase of 3D Printer: ‘Ultimaker 3’
Purchase of 3D Printer, initially for use primarily in the Collection Care Dept, in their development of conservation and storage of wax seals.
American Homefront Symposium
Summer symposium looking at the effects of WW1 across the Americas (leads on from the Irish Symposium 2016). See Magna, November 2017.
Summer Lecture Series
Series of five evening lectures co-hosted by the Royal Historical Society. Secrets and Lies: Suppression, Distortion and Fiction in Past Societies.
Suffrage Tales
Young people working with a filmmaker using original documents to make film about suffrage. Following 2016 Somme Tales project. See Magna, November 2017 and May 2018.
Details of the Suffrage Tales project can be found here.
Loyalty & Dissent – Audio Plays
Audio version of five drama performances created for Loyalty & Dissent 2016 project. See Magna, May 2017.
Archive Archie
Includes bookshop voucher for winner of a staff competition to design a mascot for TNA’s Education Team.
TNA Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
A six-month research fellowship exploring and testing handwritten text recognition software.
See Magna, May 2019.
Suffrage Centenary Project
A recreation project based on the celebration of the Representation of the People Act. In partnership with the National Trust
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for TNA Reception area.
2016
Care and Comfort in the First World War
Partnership education sessions with Thames Explorer Trust using MH13 Public Health Material
Royal Navy First World War Crew List Project
Part fund design and delivery cost of website for service records of all RN officers and crew serving in WW1
Ireland 1916 Symposium: Isle of Saints and Soldiers
Funding to enable the networking function after the symposium
Great Steampunk Genre Jam
Prize money for event held at University of York
In Our Minds – Travelling Display Panel
Travelling Display Panel
Transport of Panels
A Knights Tale: Medieval Fun Day
Engaging with family groups through two armed combat demonstrations and a ‘show and tell’ display
Somme Tales
10-12 young people to work with filmmaker Nigel Kellaway. Using original documents to make film about Commonwealth soldiers’ contribution to Somme.
Details of the Somme Tales project can be found here.
Wartime Food and Drink
Fun day activities with 5-11 year olds using original documents, and the creation of two allotments in the grounds of TNA
HCA Prize Papers Project – sorting miscellaneous papers
Papers from late 17th and 18th centuries, taken from 1300 ships. Dr Andrew Little engaged for 14 weeks as papers are written in maritime and domestic Dutch
‘Optelec Viewer’
Real-time camera set-up to assist full-time cataloguers
Loyalty and Dissent in WW1: partnering with the Tamasha Touring Company
5 original drama performances inspired by the TNA WW1 records. Performances on-site at TNA and off-site in March 2017
FTNA AGM & Francis Beckett Talk
Funding for reception of evening talk and book signing
Christmas Tree
Live Christmas tree for TNA Reception area.