This year’s East of England Industrial Archaeology Conference will be on the 10th June 2023. EERIAC is held once a year and rotates round the region. 2023 is the turn for Essex, and will be held at Chelmsford Museum. EIAG (Essex Industrial Archaeology Group) is bringing to you EERIAC 2023, focussing on the Industrial Heritage of Chelmsford.
Talks include Chelmsford’s industries, Marconi, and visits to industrial sites in the Moulsham area, on the Chelmsford’s Industrial Trail. Please bring your own lunch. If you are interested in booking a place contact Jane Giffould via email: jgiffould@aol.com
For the first time since 2019 the East Midlands Industrial Archaeology Conference is returning as an in-person event on the 17th June. The venue will be the Old Gasworks, in the Derbyshire village of Sudbury. This was opened in 1875 and was designed by George Devey, a noted architect of the time. EMIAC 2023 will be one of the first chances to see the gasworks in its new guise, learn about the development of artificial lighting and its use on country house estates, and the extensive improvements made to Sudbury Hall and the village in the 19th Century.
Gas was produced from coal at the plant and piped to provide lighting for Sudbury Hall and houses in the village. The gasholder was dismantled in the 1930s and the building stood empty and deteriorated for many years. Ten years ago, people from the village came together to form a building preservation trust to save the gasworks. Grants from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Association for Industrial Archaeology and other sources, enabled the restoration of the the original retort house, whilst a new circular meeting room has been constructed on the footprint of the former gasholder.
The architects and volunteers involved in the project will describe the challenges they faced to restore the building and make it into valuable community asset during the conference. Speakers on the day will include freelance industrial archaeologist Dr Ian West and architectural historian Cherry Ann Knott.
To celebrate 50 years of Industrial Archaeology the Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA) will be organising a 50th anniversary conference over six days in the city where the Association held its first conference: Bath. This will take place from 1st to 6th September 2023 at the University of Bath.
The Association will be looking not only at the achievements of the AIA over the past half century but also the spread of Industrial Archaeology to other parts of the world with several international speakers contributing lectures on the Saturday morning.
The seminar on Friday will consider the work currently being done by the upcoming generation of industrial archaeologists. In place of the traditional Rolt Lecture after the AGM on Sunday morning, the AIA will be celebrating the pioneering industrial archaeology achievements of the late Angus and Brenda Buchanan.
Both the seminar and the weekend conference events will be hybrid, allowing those members unable to attend in person to join the presentations. However, it is hoped that members will take this opportunity, after a break of three years, to attend in person to renew old friendships and form new ones.
The Conference programme is as follows:
Friday – Young Members Board Seminar, Evening Reception
Saturday – Celebration of the work of the AIA nationally & internationally, Award presentations, Conference dinner
Sunday morning – AGM, followed by a celebration of Angus and Brenda Buchanan with presentations by Sir Neil Cossons, Keith Falconer OBE and Prof. Marilyn Palmer MBE
Sunday afternoon – Visit to the museum of Bath at Work, Civic Reception
Monday – Choice of visits to local sites of IA interest, evening talk
Tuesday – Choice of visits to local sites of IA interest, evening talk
Wednesday – Choice of visits to local sites of IA interest
Booking is available in four packages covering the fill six days, the weekend events, the Friday seminar, or online access for the Friday & weekend. Go to the AIA website to see full details and to book: https://industrial-archaeology.org/conferences/service001/
The Naval Dockyards Society are holding their annual conference on 12th April 2023 in-person at National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. The event will also be available on-line. The theme of this year’s conference is the‘Economic and Social Impact of Dockyard & Shipyard Closures & Heritage Renewal:Lessons to be Learned‘.
Subjects to be covered include what are the social and economic effects of dockyard or shipyard closures on their communities – anywhere in the world? Are closure outcomes always negative, or can communities benefit from renewal? Speakers will analyse globally diverse post-closure routes.
The SS Great Britian Trust is co-hosting the ‘Brunel: History, Conservation and Legacy’ conference on the 12th November 2022, organised by the Brunel Institute. This is the first major conference centred around I.K. Brunel and his legacy held since 2006.
This event is for transport and maritime historians and enthusiasts, engineers, researchers and anybody interested in architecture, design and the life and work of Brunel. Running from 9:30am to 5:00pm, it will feature contributions from Brunel historians, writers and engineers based around three themes:
New historical perspectives around the life and work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel
The ongoing conservation of Brunel’s architectural and engineering legacy
Transforming Futures: Brunel’s engineering legacy in the 21st century and beyond
The event will be held in the Brunel Institute, a collaboration between the SS Great Britain Trust and the University of Bristol. The Institute houses one of the most important Brunel-related collections in the world.
Details of this year’s Essex Industrial Heritage Fair, run by the Essex Industrial Archaeology Group, to be held on the 1st October, have been announced. The venue is the Silver End Village Hall, CM8 3RQ.Silver End was conceived as a model industrial village by the industrialist Francis Henry Crittall, who established a Crittall Windows Ltd factory there to manufacture components for metal windows in the 1920s.
Entrance to the Industrial Heritage Fair is free, and there is on-street car parking throughout the village. Light refreshments will be provided by the W.I. during the event and there are food outlets at the adjacent parade of shops. As well as talks, in the morning there will be two guided walks around the village, its factory and the model village housing. The programme is as follows:
10:00 Fair opens to the public
10:30 Welcome by Tony Crosby, Chairman of Essex Industrial Archaeology Group followed by the official opening of the Industrial Heritage Fair by Simon Brice D.L.
10:45 & 11:15 Guided walks around the village
1:45 Jackie Nesbitt: The history of Crittall’s and Silver End Village
2:30 Mike Tarbard: Bata shoe manufacturers and East Tilbury Village
3:15 Natalie Banks: The architecture of Silver End village
Tickets for this year’s Heritage Volunteering Group Conference, #HeritageVolunteering22, on the 8th to 9th November, are now available.#HeritageVolunteering22 willexplore how we make the most of our varied skills to build a new future for heritage volunteering.
The conference will open with a Keynote talk from Shaun Delaney, Head of Volunteering Strategy at DCMS. The rest of the conference will feature a combination of workshops, panel discussions, and the awarding of HVG’s Volunteer Leader of the Year Award.The full agenda is available on the Eventbrite page
General tickets are available at £25. Follow this link to buy your tickets: here.
Charity Digital are hosting their annual conference, #BeMoreDiguital, on 30th June 2022 in London, in person. The Charity Digital Conference is created by charities, for charities. It aims to help build confidence and skills for charities across the UK, regardless of their digital maturity or digital expertise. It is an opportunity to grow together, to learn from each other, and to ensure the sector’s collective success, and copuld be useful for those running industrial heritage sites.
The topics covered include sessions that touch on the following: fundraising and marketing; strategy, tech and data; impact; small charities; keynote session.
Essex County Council are holding are holding a mini-conference on Industrial Heritage on the 5th April 2022 at the East Anglian Railway Museum. There will be a wide range of speakers plus a chance to look round the venue.
The day is aimed at anyone interested in industrial heritage and architecture, or those who are currently involved in the conservation or sustainable reuse of these kind of sites. The mini-conference will provide insight into a range of industrial typologies across Essex.
The venue, at the East Anglian Railway Museum, was part of the branch line from Marks Tey to Sudbury which crosses the impressive Chappel viaduct. This site is now run as a museum, and is still a working railway station. It is well known for its open days and events, which reveal a rich history. There will be time within the day to explore this impressive site.
Talks will cover water, gas, electric industries, maltings, and breweries, daylight factories, and the challenges of recording and preserving 20th century industrial heritage. The speakers include: Wayne Cocroft of Historic England; Tony Crosby, Chairman of the Essex Industrial Archaeology Group; Tim Murphy, Historic Environment Manager at Place Services for Essex; Mike Tarbard of the Bata Heritage Centre and David Ridler manager of the former Bata factory site; and Elphin Watkin, presient of the Herts & Essex Architectural Society.
Industrial Heritage Networks 