Reference
CRPu3/12
Title
Exhibition leaflets
Date free text
1930 onwards
Production date
From: 1930 To: 1987
Admin/biog history
The County Record Office began a series of exhibitions to highlight the collections of the office in 1930. Exhibitions changed twice a year. The series was halted on the outbreak of war in 1939 and then restarted in 1943 with a series of fortnightly exhibitions on each village. In January 1946 the length of each village exhibition was increased to 4 weeks. From 1952 exhibitions became quarterly. Exhibitions continued until 1986/7. Some exhibitions were shown in Bedford and then in Luton. Each exhibition had an accompanying handout that explained the theme. No details survive of the exhibitions between 1950 and the second half of 1952 although we know they were: Agriculture, Farming Accounts, Travel, Banking, Sport, Heraldry, Festivities, Elections, Music, Household Inventories and Royal Accessions. Where other gaps in the leaflets appear these are noted in the catalogue. It is not known why there were no exhibitions in 1961.
In the 1990s the office produced annual exhibitions of facsimiles that toured libraries throughout the county but these did not generally have any leaflets associated with them. In 2014 the office once again began a series of small scale exhibitions on site, however rather than publish a specific exhibition leaflet for these later exhibitions an accompanying newsletter article was published.
In addition to the standard office exhibitions there were also some ‘incidental’ exhibitions for which leaflets were produced. These are catalogued at the end of the main series of leaflets.
Archival history
The exhibition leaflets were gathered together into binders numbered I-IX probably in the 1960s. These binders were recatalogued to form the present catalogue in 2017 and replace the old reference CRV13.
Level of description
sub-series