All this month's news from The Keep Archive Centre
March 2024
 Diary of Walter Gale AMS 7478
Pictured above is the diary (1753-1759) of schoolmaster Walter Gale of Mayfield.
The volume was first offered to East Sussex Record Office in May 1964 by Charles Diplock of Salisbury in what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
The county archivist, Richard Dell, wrote to accept the offer but the book remained in Mr Diplock's hands.
Nearly 60 years later Mr Diplock’s daughter got in touch to offer the same diary again and we now have it.
Walter Gale taught at Mayfield Free School and worked as a cartographer. The Keep holds an example of his work as ACC8525/1.
Extracts from his journal of 1750 edited by R W Blencowe, appear in Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. 9, pp. 182-207.
Mr Gale died in 1773 and we hold his will at The Keep.
Letter from Richard Dell, county archivist, to Mr Charles Diplock thanking him for the offer of Walter Gale's diary
 Early this year, The Keep closed to the public for our Collections Care Fortnight.
Like most archives, we set aside this time to stock take and catch up on larger projects, all of which help improve the services we offer.
During the closure in late January/early February, we were busy sorting collections, deep cleaning our miles of shelves, training, cataloguing, repackaging and rehousing items.
Nearly 2000 boxes and their contents were surveyed and weighed to determine priorities for rehousing and digitisation to enable better access to our documents.
These behind-the-scenes activities help us to keep the building running smoothly, and ensure our collections are safely and efficiently stored, throughout the rest of the year.
 Image: Illustration, c.1910 (ACC 11182/5)
What’s better than a train? A train in the sea, of course.
Victorian engineer Magnus Volk’s marvellous creation, the Seashore Electric Railway (popularly known as the ‘Daddy Long-Legs’) carried passengers between Brighton and Rottingdean from 1896 to 1901.
Weighing around 45 tons, the Daddy Long-Legs was propelled by electric motors and moved along a line of poles carrying an electricity supply cable along the coast.
Less than a week after opening, the leggy locomotive was toppled by a storm, but by 1897 it was back on track. Although it couldn’t move at more than a walking pace during high tide, visitors nevertheless flocked to the magnificent ‘sea voyage on wheels.’
Eventually, damage to the track bed and an order to divert the line around planned sea defence works meant that the Daddy Long-Legs could no longer afford to operate.
It was abandoned and parts were sold for scrap around 1910, much of it going to Germany where, as the Volks Electric Railway website says, ‘it was no doubt used in munitions and fired back at our troops four years later.’
Many of the blocks which formed the tracks can still be seen at low tide – look out for them on the Undercliff Walk to Rottingdean.
The image above is part of a collection of illustrations of Brighton’s seafront, including the Clock Tower, West Street and West Pier, and can be ordered and viewed at The Keep.
 Jeremy Hutchinson’s first legal brief was undertaken in 1945 at the age of 25 for the prosecution against English sailor William (Bob) Croft.
Nearing the end of the Second World War, Jeremy was stationed at Caserta in Italy as part of his service in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Croft was accused of murdering Canadian Private Joe McGilrary, better known by his alias ‘Lucky’.
His archive preserves documents concerning this unique case and includes the names of those providing evidence. Overall, 17 names were instructed to provide witness statements for the prosecution and were required to attend the trial that took place in the baroque surroundings of a room in the San Carlo Opera House in Naples.
Further interesting records include fragile naval paper with faded ink arranging the logistics for the trial in Naples, cross-examinations, and crime scene photographs.
Croft was found guilty of murdering McGilvary and was executed at Naples on 14th April 1945. He was the last English sailor to be executed; it would be Hutchinson’s only capital punishment case.
The archive of British barrister Jeremy Hutchinson, Baron Hutchinson of Lullington QC (1915-2017), was allocated to the University of Sussex in 2020 through the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme. It was partially catalogued in 2022 following professional archival guidelines. The archive is now being completed by Project Archivist, Alexander Taylor, who aims to make the full collection available to the public by June 2024.
 The Keep recently received three original maps of Rye dating from 1843 and 1859.
Pictured above is the 1859 town map. It shows buildings, property boundaries, parcel numbers, the railway, position of main drains, and gives street names.
The maps can be ordered and viewed at The Keep.
Queer Heritage South was awarded a Heritage Fund grant in February to develop a new strategy for LGBTQIA+ Heritage across Brighton & Hove.
The project ‘Queer Heritage South: Live Archive’ aims to create a city-wide and long-term strategy for the collection, archiving, and sharing of Brighton’s rich LGBTQIA+ heritage.
‘Live Archive’ will work towards creating a new and inclusive digital archive for the city, future-proofing LGBTQIA+ collecting in Brighton & Hove, animating the archive through cultural events, and finally delivering a major exhibition in 2027.
The Keep along with other partners across the city including Brighton & Hove Museums and the University of Sussex helped to develop the project and will continue working with Queer Heritage South.
Queer Heritage South is a programme of Marlborough Productions, an LGBTQIA+ producing cultural organisation founded in Brighton & Hove in 2010 and supported by Arts Council England.
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Mass Observation is running a laid-back zine-making and collaging workshop at The Keep in celebration of International Women’s Day. Participants will learn about feminism rooted in print culture and punk while using Mass Observation material to make their own zine at this free creative session.
The session - hosted by Bad Taste Collective - is on Thursday 7 March from 2pm to 4pm.
Please email MOA@Sussex.ac.uk to join the waiting list.
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February saw the return of student placements at The Keep for 2024. Mass Observation currently has six students on placement from Brighton University and University of Sussex. East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office is also hosting a student.
Mass Observation spoke at Micheldene WI about women’s lives during WW2.
Meanwhile, independent advocacy charity Speak Out Brighton & Hove came to The Keep for a tour, a look at the archives and a discussion about the language we use in our catalogues to describe people with learning disabilities.
The charity works to ensure people with learning disabilities can speak up and act on the things that matter to them
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01273 482349
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