The Local History Bulletin goes online
Between 1987 and 2011, Gloucestershire Rural Community Council’s Local History Committee published 25 issues of its magazine Gloucestershire History, which between them comprise a total of 120 articles on aspects of the county’s past. Unfortunately, its publication ceased in 2011, when the Local History Committee was dissolved, (due to funding no longer being available from GRCC) and was succeeded by the Gloucestershire Local History Association, which has lacked the resources to revive the publication.
Gloucestershire History was digitised some years ago and may be downloaded from the GLHA website https://gloshistory.org.uk/gloucestershire-history/ . Now all 54 issues of its predecessor, the Local History Bulletin, which was published by the Local History Committee between 1966 and 1986, have also been digitised. Each issue contained news from the world of local history and archaeology in Gloucestershire – and increasingly articles on aspects of the county’s past, which eventually became the mainstay of the Bulletin, as the ‘day to day’ news was carried in a Local History Newsletter instead.
The digitised copies of the Bulletin are now available to download on the Gloucestershire Documents Online website https://glosdocs.org.uk/local-history-bulletin/ with a direct link from the GLHA website. All the Gloucestershire History articles are individually listed and downloadable, and all the Bulletins are single file downloads, with the main contents of each issue being listed on the download page.
GLHA is most grateful to its webmaster, Dr Ray Wilson, for initiating the project and digitising both sets of publications, and to a number of institutions and individuals who loaned back copies of the Bulletin for scanning: Gloucestershire Archives, Cheltenham Library Local & Family History Centre, John Loosley and David Viner. Between them, these two publications contain a wealth of information about Gloucestershire’s past – so do take a look; you might be surprised (and delighted!) at what you might find.