Charity Registration No. 1188637
Northumberland Archives Trust
NORTHUMBERLAND ARCHIVES CHARITABLE TRUST
ANNUAL REPORT AND UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2024

NORTHUMBERLAND ARCHIVES CHARITABLE TRUST
LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
Trustees:
Stuart Bankier
(Term ends 31 December 2026)
(Term ends 31 December 2024)
(Term ends 31 December 2024)
Morag Boyes
William Browne-
Swinburne
John Carr-ElSison
(Term ends 31 De￿mber 2024)
{Appointed 17 April 2024, term ends 31 December 2026>
(Retired 31 December 2023)
(Appointed 6 December 2023, term ends 31 December
2026)
(Temi ends 31 December 2026)
(Term ends 31 December 2026)
(Term ends 31 December 2024)
Lesley Lee
Sir Philip Mawer
Flora Moxon
Sue Shaw
Prof. Annie Tindley
John Webster
Charlty Numbor:
1188637
Prlnclpal Address:
clo Northumberland Archives
QEII Country Park
Ashington
Northumberland
NE63 9YF
Independent Examlner:
Andrew Ayre
Bankers:
Unity Trust Bank
PO Box 7193
Planetary Road
Willenhall
WV19DG

NORTHUMBERLAND ARCHIVES CHARITABLE TRUST
TRUSTEES, REPORT
For the Year ended 31 March 2024
The Year Under Revlew
This is our fourth annual report covering the fourth year of the Trust's existence. It
has seen the Trust make yet more progress in its core aim of raising funds to help
Northumberland's Archive Service make the archival treasures in its care more
widely known and more readily aC￿SSIble to a wider range of people. By December
2023 we had reached the milestone of £100,000 raised for the servi￿ since the
Trust was established in 2020. Our annual turnover doubled in 2023-24, just as it
had in 2021-22 and 2022-23. It is not unrealistic to hope that this will happen again
in 2024-25, but we cannot perhaps expect these exponential Increases to continue
beyond then.
The funds raised have enabled the Archive SeNice to pursue various of their
projects, detailed later in this report,
In helping the Service to develop these projects, we Gontinue to pursue our aim of
widening aGcess to the archives, particularly for hard-to-reach parts of the
community. As will be seen later, some of the projects involve working closely with
local Schools and community groups, and result in further material being added to
the Service's online catalogue (CALM) or its digital LEARN platform (Learning and
Educational Archive Resources from Northumberland), from where it is available to
all.
Our Objectives for 2023 and tha Progress We Made
The Trust has adopted the practice of setting out at the start of each calendar year
its objectives for the year ahead and then at the end of the year measuring progress
made towards achieving them. In 2023, we aimed to:
Roll out a major effort to ralse sufficient funds to allow the employment by the
Archive Service of two members of staff for at least two years to begin
catsSoguing the Service's backlog of collections of estate papers.
Continue to build on the LEARN Project to help to ￿rnent the Servi￿'s
relationship with schools and others.
Gradually increase the number of the Trust's supporters, through enhanced
communications- giving talks,. and other means.

At our end-of-year assessment, we were able to conclude that we had made
progress against all of these, on some more than others..
On cataloguing, we made a couple of suc￿Ssful funding applications relating
to small individual collections; and four more ambitious applications for
substantial funding for staffing costs. The latter had only limited success, but
we have gained much helpful experience.
2 Trust-sponsored additions were made to the LEARN platform, namely
Shipwrecks & Rescues (designed primarily for schools) and Bamburgh Castle
Welfare State (designed primarily for life-long learners).
More detall is given below.
Our Projects and what they Delivered
The projects either in progress or in preparation referred to in our 2023 Report
are still ongoing, but have all progressed, and a new project went from start
almost to completion in 2023-24. More new projects are in development,
Pro
ects in Pro
re8S
a) Th8 Photocentr8 Collection - 'Everyday Life in North Northumberl8nd'
This project began in 2021 and, subject to funding availability, could continue for
several more years, the current funding being die to run out in 2025.
The Photocentre Collection contains over a million photographic negatives
documenting all aspects of life North Northumberland and the Scottish Borders
be￿een 1951 and 2012. With funding generously provided by the Lough Fund
through the Community Foundation, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, the Service
has been able to employ part-time a suitably qualified archival assistant to catalogue,
preseNe and digitlse some of the contents of the Collectlon, so that they can be
made available online.
By May 2024, more than 14,000 entries had been added to the electronic catalogue
(an increase of 6,000 since June 2023) and 1250 images had been digitised. A
regular blog and other social media output had built an online following for the
project of over 1,500 people. Images from the collection have been exhibited in
Berwick-upon-Tweed (where they stimulated much excitement) and at
Northumberland County Hall in Morpeth. They can also be viewed on the project's
dedicated website at htt s.'Ilwww.
hotocentrebeNick.co.uk

b) Hospitals in the North
Work on this project, funded by the Bright Trust, began in 2022 and involves
volunteers at Woodhorn and BeNick. Together the volunteers are researching
aspects of maternity care provision in the county prior to the establishment of the
National Health SeNice. In 2023, work progressed to add oral histories of former
patients and staff made by trained volunteers. As at April 2024, they had recorded 8
oral histories and had made written records of other8. A County Hall exhibition is
planned for March 2025.
c) Ashington to the Futur8
This new project was a re-run in Ashington of the successful "Blyth to the Future"
project run in 2022-23, again funded by a generous grant from the Platten Family
Fund through the Community Foundation, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland. The
aim of the project was to look at Ashington's past using archival material and to
imagine its future, while stimulating the schoolchildren's interest in STEM subjects
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). In this version of the project, the
children were also given an opportunity to make oral history recordings with
members of the Ashington Veterans and Elders Institute, benefiting both the young
and older participants. Evaluation afte￿ardS confirmed the succe8s of the project,
and it is hoped that funding can be found for it to be run yet again in another less
advantaged community.
d) A Major Cataloguing Project
This was the major focus of the Trust's fundraising efforts in 2023-24. It is Ilkely to
be ongoing for Some years.
Northumberland Archives holds a nationally important collection of estate records,
one of the most comprehensive of any English county. These are the records of
th
landed families and estates, some dating back to the 12 century. They include
environmental, economic, cultural and social records, oxtendlng to rich material on
urban as well as rural life. Before central government took on such duties as welfare
and education, estates carried out many of these functions, so thelr records cover a
broad spectrum of society.
Many of these collections remain uncatalogued, thelr content largely unknown, and
they cannot be made accessible to the public for security reasons. Cataloguing
would unlock them for research, education, outreach and strengthenlng community
ties.
The Archive Service has identified 12 priority collections out of a total of 47, the
cataloguing of which will require more staff ing resource. The County Council is not
under a legal duty to fund the work and there is no realistic prospect of it being able
to do so.

In most Cases, the Archive SeNice is in contact with the descendants of the various
families whose papers have been selected. Where this is so, the Trustees have
contacted them and 811 have indicated their support. Some have made a financial
contribution already, or indicated a willingness to do so.
Most of the Trust's efforts on this project in 2023-24 went into making applications to
4 large national funders to try to raise £200,000. Competition for these funds is
ntense. (It turned out that one of our applications was in competition wlth 72 others
for only 6 grants.) They were unsuccessful, except for a generous grant of £30,000
from the Foyle Foundation, limited to the purchase of equipment. This has been
used to acquire a sophisticated book scanner for digitisation and we are most
grateful to Foyles for demonstrating their confsdence in the project in this way.
In making funding applications, set-backs are to be expected. We have learnt much
from ours and have now embarked upon a new programme of applications, initially
to some of the larger local funders in the North Ea8t, hoping that competition for their
funds will be a little less intense.
On a brighter note. the Trustees made 2 small but successful funding applications to
funders with a special interest in the collections concerned.,
i) Clayton Collection
The Claytons owned the Chesters estate which straddles Hadrian's Wall. After he
inherited the estate, John Clayton bought additional Isnd along the central section of
the Wall to save it from further destruction. After a successful application to the EDF
Energy Green Rigg Wind Farm Community Benefits Fund, through the Communlty
Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, cataloguing work was done in 2023
and the project completed by the delivery of outreach work in the local community.
ii) Atkinson and Marshall Papers
From 1805, Northumbrian sheep farmer8 Atkinson and Marshall leased land,
eventually more than 100,000 acres, on the Highland estate of the Countess of
Sutherland.
The introduction of large-scale sheep farming pioneered new
agricultural methods, but resulted in the mass eviction of tenant crofters, now known
as the Highland Clearances.
A successful application for a grant to the
Strathmartine Tru8t, a Scottish academic fund, has enabled the cataloguing of this
collection, now well in hand.
Protecting and Preserving the County's Archlves
There have been concerns for some time about the storage arrangements for the
archives in Be￿ICk. The redevelopment of the Berwick Barracks - a Grade 1 listed
complex built to designs by Nicholas Hawksmoor be￿een 1718 and 1721 has
provided an opportunity to establish a new site in the Mob Store for the safe and
secure storage of the archives. with a public search and reading room located
adjacent to it.

The redevelopment of the Barracks will be a complex and lengthy process but the
substantial funding allocated to it so far means that real progress has already been
made. The Trustees are monitoring developments, to be ready to offer what help
they can in bringing to fruition these important plans for the Berwick Archives.
Our People
Patrons and Su
orters
The committed support of local people Con￿rned to preserve their county's heritage
is a critical ingredient in the Trust's continued success. During 2023-24 we
increased the number of those who are patrons of the Trust (who each generously
contribute at least £100 a year to its funds) but the number of members (each kindly
contributing £10 pa) fell slightly.
As can be seen from the attached accounts, the expenses of running the Trust are
small but the donations made by these cornmitted supporters ensure that the money
we receive in grants and the donations from casual donors visiting the Archives or
via the Trust's website can be entirely spent on supporting the Archive Service. The
Trustees are very grateful to all who support the Trust in this way.
We are working to improve our communlcations and other interaGtions with our
regular supporters, while being conscious that there is a balance to be struck to
avoid infomation overload. We send occasional emails to supporters informing
them of significant developments and pointing them to news on our website and in
December 2023 we issued a third digital newslett8r. We plan to dev8lop a more
regular pattern of contact wrth supporters in future, including social media.
Volunteers
We also value highly the efforts of those who volunteer to help the Archive Service.
There has for many years been an established pattern of volunteers assisting in this
way at BeNick Record Office. Volunteering has been less common at Woodhorn,
but a small group of volunteers are now helping there with Hospitals in the North.
Trustees
Those who currently serve as Trustees are listed at the beginning of this Report.
They are all volunteers and come from a wide range of professional backgrounds,
bringing a wealth of relevant experience to the task. 2023-24 brought several
changes to the membership of the Trustee body.
Sir Philip Mawer retired both as Chair and as a Trustee on 31st December 2023.
There could have been no one better qualified than Philip to chair the Trust during its
first three years, particularly given the difficulties created by the Covid pandemic.
This slowed the Trust's early development, particularly in its first year, but befo￿ the
end of the second year we had a bank account, a full board of trustees from a useful
range of professional backgrounds, proper financial controls and an appropriate suite

of governance policies. We also had a website, a nascent membership scheme,
supported by a digital member management tool, and had made a start on
fundraising. It 15 questionable how much of this could have been achieved wlthout
Philip's wisdom, experience and careful guidance. However, he had always made it
clear that he would not serve more than one term as chair, due to his commitments
to other organisations and, above all, to his family.
The Trustees had already decided to appoint Sue Shaw to replace him for a tem of
3 years.
She has stated,. .1 do not begin to pretend that I could h8ve set the Tnjst on its feet
from the start in the way that Philip so successfully did, but I can bring lo the role 8
life-long fascination with history, some experience of using archives and all that I
learnt in my legal G8f8er. My principal aim as Chair is to enable the Archive Seryice
to make substantial progress in reducing a cataloguing backlog that has developed
OV8r a long period due to limited resourGes.'
In December, we also welcomed Flora Moxon as a Trustee. Flora began her career
as an archivisfi, inltially in the Hampshire Record Office and subsequently in ottawa,
followed by an international career in Human Resources Working in global
companies. She will boost the Trust's capabilities in Communications.
In February 2024, we appointed Lesley Lee as our new Membership Secretary.
Lesley is a retired librarian, who is also the Hon. Secretary of the Friends of St.
Nicholas (Newcastle Cathedral) and highly experienced in runnlng a membership
organisatlon. In April 2024, we appointed her as a Trustee.
Our Fundlng and Flnanclal Controls
The Trust's Accounts for the year under review are attached to this report. We are
grateful to all those funding organisations and individuals who have enabled our
support for projects undertaken by the Archive SeNice to increase over the past 12
months. The accounts, which have been independently examined, confim that the
Trust continues to be adequately funded to meet its liabilities. The Trust wishes to
record Its grateful thanks to Andrew Ayre, who has acted as our Independent
Examiner during the current year,
During the past year, Trustees reviewed the Trust's protocol for the authorisation of
ex
enditure and its reserves policy. Regarding the former, Trustee8 confirmed the
following statement..
All expenditu￿ must he authoris8d by two Trustees, at least one of whom
must be either the Chaiman or the Treasurer. Similarly, all bank payments
must be aut170rised by two Trustees at least one of w170m must be either the
Chairman or the Treasurer. At each Trusfees, meeting the Treasurer must
Girculate a detailed statement of income and expenditure for Éhe current year
and details of current reserves. At the end of eaGh financial year, an

Independent Examiner will be appointed, who will review the financial
statements prepared by the Charity to ensure th8t they arp a true ￿fleCtIOn of
the financial position of the Charify.
Regarding ￿reserve . the Trustees review them on an annual basis taking into
consideration the inherent risk associated with running a small charity. The Trustees
always take into consideration the wider economic environment and the potential
impact that this can have on the results for the year. The balance of funds is
reviewed taking into consideration oper8tional and financial plans for the year to
ensure that the Trust has sufficient funding to meet its objectives on an on-going
basis. We are satisfied that this remains the case.
Finally under this heading, the Trust's arrangements to enable those who use the
Offices at Berwick and Woodhorn to make casual donations to the Trust in cash
have produced results. In 2023-24, there was a steady flow of cash donations
totalling £1,545. A separate facility in each office enabling dlgital donations by using
a QR code remains unused, but we are leaving it in place for the time being.
Our Governance
The Trust continued its practi￿ of reviewing its growing suite of govemance policles
at least annually at its December meeting and a formal reserves policy was
approved in June 2024. See above for changes to the Board of Trustees in
December 2023 and April 2024.
Both continuing and newly appointed Trustees are encouraged to undertake relevant
training (e.g. on fundraising and safeguarding) whenever this Is necessary andlor
appropriate.
Conclu8ion
The Trust has enjoyed a fourth successful year. Where things have not gone so
well, we have learnt lessons. As we hope this report shows, it is making steady
progress delivering on its objectives, in the public interest, Whilst never complacent,
we believe that we are establishing a consistent record of support for the
Northumberland Archive Service to promote wider access to the County's impressive
archival heritage, and in so doing to bring its wider heritage leconomlc. political,
industrial, cultural, social and environmental} vividly to life. We hope this will help to
regenerate pride in local communities and to re-energise the North East.

Approved by the Trustees at their meeting on 22 October 2024 and signed on their
behalf by..
Sue Shaw (Chair)
Stuart Bankier (Treasurer)
Date..
io

Independent examlner's report to the trustees of Northumberland Archives
Charitable Trust
report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Northumberland
Archives Charitable Trust (the Charity) for the year ended 31 March 2025.
Responsibllitias and basls of raport
As the charity trustees of the Charity, you are responsible for the preparation of the
accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ('the Act,).
I report in respect of my examination of the Charity's accounts carried out under
section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination S have followed all
the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(51(b) of
the Act.
Independent examlnor'8 gtatsment
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to
my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in
any material respect:
1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the Charlty as required by
section 130 of the Act,, or
2. the accounts do not a¢cord with those records., or
3. the accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the
form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports)
Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a true
and fair view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent
examination.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the
examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable
proper underst
nding of
e accounts to be reached.
Signed..
Name..
Address:
4J70ts1 ',14
li

Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust
Statement of Financial Activities for the Year Ending 31st March 2024
Year Ending
3110312024
Year
Ending
3110312023
Income
Lord Crewe Charity
Patrons
Donation re Bosanquel Papers
Donation re Gibson Papers
Donation re Woodhom
Donation re PhDtocenlre Collection
Community Foundation Re Pholocentré
Community Foundation Re Plalten
Josephine Bullef
Clayton of Chesters
NCC New Burdens
Donations General
Community Foundation Re Ashinglon
Memberships
HMRC Gift Aid Clalm
Gift Aid claimed through Slawardship
Total Income
e,000
1.508
2,500
1,000
4,000
1,205
1,000
1,000
5,000
10.000
10,000
2,000
3,372
5.000
1,545
15,602
155
700
94
49,476
590
305
226
23,326
Lo88 Expendlture to date
Adminlstratlon Costs
Website charges 22123
Website charges 23124
8ank Charges
Meetlng Costs
Artwork
Promollonal Stands
Insurance
VONNE Membership
Ghorltable Actlvltl¢8
Platten Project
Woodhom General Donation
Woodhorn re Photo Centre
Woodhorn re Josephine Butler
Woodhorn re Clayton of Chesters
WoDdhorn re Lord Crewe Charity
Woodhorn re Ashington Futures
WooL1horn accnjed re New Burdens
Woodhorn ac¢rued re Bosanquet
Woodhorn accrued re Gibson papers
1201
11851
172)
13251
(721
1149}
1601
12211
11851
12481
85
{670}
1952)
1255)
110,0001
11,000)
16,0001
110,0001
12,000)
13,3721
16,000}
115,6021
15,0001
{2,5001
1,000
(4,0001
(45,7291
{21,0001
Surplus for the Year
3,077
1,374
12

Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust
Balance Sheet for the Year Ending 31st March 2024
21,428
24,551
Balance per bank
Add Debtors
HMRC
700
Less Creditors
Kreallve Technology
{1451
{1451
Committed Expendllure:
Donation re Woodhom
Donation re Photocenlre
Woodhorn re Hospitsl Project
W¢)odnorn re Platten Project
Woodhorn ré Photocenlre Digitisalion
Woodhorn re Photo Cenlre clf from 23
Woodhorn accrued re New Burd8ns
Woodhorn re Bosanquet papers
W¢Jodhom re G1bson papers
{1,000}
11,0001
12,000}
15,0001
(5,0001
11,000)
11,000}
15,0001
12,5001
19,6451
115,1451
Not A880ts at 3110312024
Repre8entod by:
Reserves brought fornard from prlor years
Current year surplus lo date
Total ResètV68 at 3110312024
9,406
8,032
13