11 August 2020
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Batley Fire Brigade, first steam fire engine, 1909, Batley Borough Collection
The team at the Kirklees office of West Yorkshire Archives Service is celebrating after news of a £40,000 National Archives grant that will enable them to deliver an ambitious project cataloguing 150 years of local democracy.
The ‘Creating Kirklees: 150 Years of Local Democracy’ project will catalogue and celebrate the archives of the eleven local authorities that merged to form the West Yorkshire borough of Kirklees in 1974.
And there is certainly plenty to explore, with over 170 metres of archives to catalogue (equivalent to 1.5 double decker buses), telling the story of Kirklees from the 1820s to the 1970s with topics including:
- public health
- schools
- town planning
- wartime services
- transport
- energy supplies
A programme of public events will run alongside the project, with the aim of strengthening local democracy by helping local resident to use the collections to uphold their rights and support democratic accountability.
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Keep up to date with progress by following the team on Twitter @wyorksarchives