Leading British industrial history charity celebrates 10th anniversary

Devon based charity ‘Grace’s Guide’, the leading online resource for British industrial history, this month celebrates a decade of archiving Britain’s industrial heritage.

During a period of rapid advancement where new technologies are replacing tried and tested manufacturing processes, preserving our industrial heritage has never been more important. Graces Guide has spent the past 10 years collecting fascinating extracts from The Engineer, The Engineering Times, Mechanics Magazines and The Autocar to name a few, preserving them digitally for many years to come.

The online archive includes over 186,000 images and over 122,000 web pages, on Britain’s industrial achievements, companies and engineering pioneers. The project also boasts 40,000 pages of biographical notes and over 500 industrial categories for researchers, academics and enthusiasts alike, to explore.

Grace’s Guide originated in March 2007 when Andrew Tweedie, founder and editor-in-chief, directed his attention to a long-term passion - industrial history. Motivated by his belief in the importance of preserving our heritage for future generations he was inspired to begin an extensive collection of historical material and publications.

In 2014, the project reached an important milestone when not only did it become a registered charity, but 100 years’ worth of Engineer volumes had been photographed, digitalised and published online and free of charge to view and download.

There is currently no other online archive offering an entire digital run of these volumes in such an accessible way.

Many Engineer volumes were sourced from Grace’s Guide’s private collection, but many were also kindly loaned from Bristol Reference Library, The Institute of Mechanical Engineers and The Engineer (Centaur Communications).

Thanks to a continued sponsorship from Applegate Marketplace, Grace’s Guide will continue to provide people worldwide, from every generation, a free online resource to explore Britain’s rich industrial past.

Andrew Tweedie commented “We would like to thank all of those who have contributed information and publications to Graces Guide during these past 10 years. Without sponsorship and donations, we would not have been able to build such a vast encyclopaedia of industrial history. It’s wonderful to know there are so many people out there who share our dedication to maintain Britain’s great industrial history. As we look forward to the next 10 years we hope to expand the project by including more digitised publications and welcoming more contributors.”

Explore Grace’s Guide: www.gracesguide.co.uk