People and Parliament: Connecting with Communities

This outreach project is a partnership between the Parliamentary Archives and Parliamentary Outreach. Over the course of four years a series of regional activities explore the connections between people, communities and Parliament using the unique archival resources held by the Parliamentary Archives and five other archive services.

How have people influenced Parliament?

How has Parliament affected communities?

The archive services we are working with are:

The results of these activities are published as case studies within the People and Parliament transforming society section of Living Heritage  on the Parliamentary website.

The first regional activity took place at Norfolk Record Office in July 2009.  Further events took place in Norfolk between January and March 2010. Find out more about what we found out by visiting our case studies:

Our next regional partner was Birmingham Archives and Heritage.  Here a group of adults investigated Birmingham's links with the nineteenth century Parliamentary reform movement, and a group of school children and young adults found out about the area's associations with the suffragette movement.  See what they found out by visiting our case studies:

Our next regional partner was Kent History and Library Centre. We worked with Marden History Group to look at the impact of the South Eastern Railway on the community of Marden in Kent.

We then worked with Glamorgan Archives to look into the history of Cardiff Bay. The case study webpages are still in progress, in the meantime you can watch our YouTube videos.

Finally we worked with Tyne & Wear Archives to investigate public health in Sunderland in the 19th century. The case study webpages are still in progress, but you can see our YouTube video about the project.

 

Time and Tide videos

Please click below to watch videos of our Communities project, Time and Tide.

This project was in partnership with Glamorgan Archives, Mount Stuart Primary School and Grangetown Local History Society. The films were made by staff and students from Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Glamorgan.

Mount Stuart Primary School video

Mount Stuart Primary School explore the history of Cardiff Bay 

Grangetown Local History Society video

Grangetown Local History Society investigates the history of Cardiff Docks

View a case study

  • Norwich case study

    This case study is a partnership between the Parliamentary Archives, Parliamentary Outreach and Norfolk Record Office. It was set up following the launch of the People and Parliament: Connecting with Communities project in July 2009.

    We explore the impact of Parliament on local communities and find out how people have influenced Parliament.

    We do this by researching material in the Parliamentary Archives at Westminster, as well as records held locally by regional archives.

Website highlight

Explore the connections between people, communities and Parliament in more detail by visiting the Living Heritage area of the parliamentary website

Join a case study group

If you live near one of the archive services we are working with and are interested in taking part in the future activities contact us at communities@parliament.uk