Partnerships
Alongside our public-facing workshops and work with creatives, Buckinghamshire Archives were also able to partner with several key organisations in Buckinghamshire, often working with individuals who are among the most marginalised or at risk in our community, including the following organisations:
Prisma
A Buckinghamshire based organisation established in 2023 at the Bucks Youth Summit, Prisma was founded to promote inclusivity for young LGBTQ+ people in the County. One of the many great initiatives carried out by Prisma involved finding activities and events for neuro diverse young members of the LGBTQ+ communities. It was through this programme that Prisma and Buckinghamshire Archives began collaborating on the Lost Victorian Voices Project in 2024.
In June 2024 Prisma visited the archives for a tour of the collection and to take part in their first research workshop for the Lost Victorian Voices project. A small group of members of Buckinghamshire LGBTQ+ communities spent the day researching Victorian era Quarter Session records, examining the details of trials for evidence of any LGBTQ+ related “crimes”. With some basic training and guidance on how to interpret Victorian legal terminology, the group were able to identify dozens of potential instances of people being criminalised for their sexuality.
Over the following months, Prisma took part in several more research workshops and their findings were an invaluable resource for the rest of the project. The individuals they uncovered became the focus of further research, taking a single entry in a criminal record and turning them into the stories of real people, who lived full and complete lives. To have members of Buckinghamshire’s contemporary LGBTQ+ communities contribute so significantly to a project designed to give back the voice and identity denied to the LGBTQ+ communities of the past was a great privilege and one Buckinghamshire Archives is proud to have been a part of.”
Buckinghamshire Prison Service
In Spring 2024, Buckinghamshire Archives had begun delivering history workshops to the residents of HMP Grendon, a therapeutic prison in the County. After reading a government report identifying the comparatively high proportion of Grendon residents who identified as LGBTQ+, the Archives approached the Diversity and Inclusion Officer for Grendon to propose a second series of workshops, focussed on the research being conducted for the Lost Victorian Voices project.
This proposal was gladly accepted and in March Buckinghamshire Archives delivered their first Lost Victorian Voices workshop in the Prison Service. The initial workshop was with a small group of HMP Grendon residents and began in a similar fashion to the workshops conducted with Prisma, providing training and guidance on the interpretation of Victorian terminology and looking primarily at Quarter session records. The workshop was a great success, with high engagement from the residents and a substantial number of interesting individuals identified.
This initial success laid the foundation for a rapid expansion of the size and scope of the workshops held at Grendon, with more residents attending with each subsequent session, and Buckinghamshire Archives bringing a wider variety of records to the prison, from Gaol Receiving Books to Inmate Registers for the County Lunatic Asylum and much more, all of which contributed to the project in a meaningful and significant manner.
Using the great work done at HMP Grendon as proof of the value and benefits of such workshops in the prison service, Buckinghamshire Archives approached staff at HMP Aylesbury to propose a similar programme with their residents.
This proposal was also accepted and in August 2024, Buckinghamshire Archives began delivering Lost Victorian Voices to the residents of HMP Aylesbury as well. These monthly workshops were very well received with great engagement from the residents and requests for more frequent and longer sessions.
Buckinghamshire Archives’ ability to bring historic original documents into the prisons was key to the success of these workshops. Being able to engage with the men attending through the use of primary resources, and to discuss and reflect on history using records contemporary to the events, created a vibrant, positive atmosphere with open discussions and active participation. At both prisons, attendance numbers consistently increased throughout the duration of the project, feedback was overwhelmingly positive from residents and staff alike, and the research carried out contributed significantly to the overall success of the project.
Buckinghamshire New University
Whilst curating the Lost Victorian Voices exhibition the archives were able to build a fruitful relationship with the Fine Art department at Buckinghamshire New University. Collaborating closely with the archives team, first year arts students and academics visited the archives in order to engage with our research, along with a wide range of archival materials. Using the archival visits as a springboard, the fine arts students began to create a parallel exhibition, designed to be displayed alongside the archives’ own exhibition. This second exhibition would engage with 21st century queer narratives and reflect on both the shared experiences today’s community has with LGBTQ+ individuals of the past as well as the vast gulf that separates them in terms of both history and experience.
The process culminated in a combined launch of both exhibitions at Buckinghamshire New University, attended by various members of the student body, family, friends, academics and members of the archives team.
