What is in Gateway to the Past?
Gateway to the Past currently contains catalogues of 80% of the Archive and Heritage Service's holdings amounting to around 500,000 descriptions of records. We add to Gateway to the Past on a regular basis, creating catalogues of new acquisitions and collections in our backlog, and with the help of volunteers we are also working to improve catalogue descriptions.
Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archive Service
Our 6,500 collections cover over one thousand years of our collective history, and enable research into a multitude of subjects, including:
- Family history
- Local and community history
- Economic history - agriculture, industry, mining and transport
- Social history - crime, demography, education, housing, poverty, public health, religion, travel
- National and international history - Spanish Armada, American War of Independence, Indian trade, Colonial affairs
For more information about Staffordshire archive collections see our website.
William Salt Library, Stafford
Gateway to the Past currently contains the catalogue of William Salt's Original Collection, which forms the core of the Library's holdings. The Original Collection includes: printed works from the 16th to 19th centuries (books, pamphlets and periodicals); illustrative material, including the "Staffordshire Views", a superb series of c.3,000 watercolours and prints; and original documents, including title deeds, correspondence, pedigrees and transcripts.
Catalogues of property sale catalogues, portraits, topographical photographs and postcards as well as some Staffordshire journal runs are also online, as well as all new cataloguing since 2003.
For further information about the William Salt Library collections see our website.
Staffordshire County Museum
Gateway to the Past currently contains descriptions of all of the County's museum and art collections held by the County Museum Service. Our collections include: carriages, costume and textiles, fine and decorative arts, oral history recordings, photographs, puppets, and the Stafford Museum and Art Gallery collection. For further information about museum and art collections see our website.