Discovering First World War Heritage

'Legacies of War 1914-18/2014-18' is a project at the University of Leeds run by a team of academics with research interests in the First World War and its multiple legacies. We aim to stimulate innovative individual and collaborative research projects and create and foster partnerships between the university and museums, galleries, cinemas, theatres, libraries and a broad range of community groups in order to collaborate on centenary events and activities. 'Discovering First World War Heritage' is a follow-on project to 'Legacies of War', and aims to support and enhance six Heritage Lottery Funded All Our Stories projects, which have the First World War as a sole or partial focus. We aim to do this by:

1) Providing training in archival and genealogical research, helping the projects to realise their aims of discovering First World War heritage.
2) Supporting and widening access to local and national archives, libraries and museums
3) Providing forums that provide excellent opportunities for genuine knowledge exchange, allowing groups to share findings and engage in discussion and debate with HEI researchers
4) Offering remote, virtual and face-to-face support that can be tailored according to the needs of individual projects
5) Hosting a website and facebook page in which grantees can capture their learning, communicate with researchers and with each others, and present their findings to a broader public.

The training events, workshops, meetings and visits described in the Case for Support provide real opportunities for knowledge exchange and the sharing of expertise between academics and members of community groups. One of the key aims of the 'Legacies of War' project is to open up the history of the First World War in order to engage a range of community groups as broadly as possible, and this funding will allow us to do this in concrete ways.

Researchers will aim to introduce groups to the rich resources and sources held at the University and in the city, and will help them to access archives holdings in London that they not have otherwise accessed (at the National Archives and Imperial War Museum). Members of the research team who are engaged in their own individual and collaborative research projects on different aspects of the First World War will inspire, enthuse and advise groups engaged in the development of their own heritage projects in this field. Equally, community groups, by sharing their findings and discussing issues raised by the carrying out of their heritage projects, will be benefiting the researchers by the passing on of their own knowledge, expertise and research findings.

The All Our Stories research projects that this project will enhance will each have an impact upon the wider communities:

1. Headingley Litfest, 'The Wartime Hospital at Beckett's Park' - likely impact upon local residents, increasing interest in local history, and on local writers and members of Headingley LitFest, inspiring new literary and dramatic works.
2. Liverpool Museums, 'Black Families and the First World War' - impact upon local residents and other members of the public via the museum exhibition, and on descendents of black First World War veterans who will be encouraged to research their own personal histories.
3. Friends of Lawnswood Cemetery, 'Lawnswood's Great War Stories' - impact upon local residents and other members of the public via cemetery tours, and on local writers who will be asked to produce a performance based on research findings.
4. Snowgoose Writers Community, 'Unheard Voices: The Civilian Experience of the First World War in Yorkshire' - impact upon local writers and members of Snowgoose, who will be inspired by the research findings to produce new literary and dramatic works.
5. Thorner and District Historical Society, 'Thorner Community Archive' - impact upon local residents, who will gain a new understanding of the significance of their village 'Memorial Hall', and others who will be encouraged to trace their families' own personal war stories.
6. Craven Museum and Gallery, 'Talking Treasure' - impact upon local residents, who will gain a new understanding of their heritage and history, on local schools, one of the ways in which the findings will be disseminated, and on the general public visiting the museum.

In addition, this project will help to further disseminate and publicise the fruits of the individual research findings via our website and by university-hosted events, to which the local press will be invited.