About VCH Shropshire

Since its establishment in 2015, Victoria County History Shropshire has established itself as a major player in the history of the county. We have published a full-length history of Wem and accumulated draft histories of the other townships of Wem Rural parish (which may be found elsewhere on this website). We have generated a great deal of text towards the second volume of the history of Shrewsbury which can also be found on our website, and we are close to having the first draft sections of our history of Newport to post.

Shropshire was amongst the counties in which the Victoria County History worked in partnership with the County Council, the council employing teams of historians to research the history which were published by the national Victoria County History. This arrangement was productive in Shropshire (see the list of volumes published) but lapsed in the early years of the new century: it then continued for a short period as a collaboration with the University of Keele.

After a period of inactivity, the first of two volumes on Shrewsbury was produced by a team of volunteers, assembled and managed by the Victoria County History Central Office, and published in 2014.

The warm reception this volume received encouraged us to launch a new, entirely voluntary organization in 2015. We receive no funding from local or central government, and are therefore dependent on charities for their support and our own fundraising-efforts. In this way we grateful to The Walker Trust, the Marc Fitch Fund and the VCH’s own charitable body, the Victoria County History Trust. We were given a flying start by a substantial donation by the Jean Jackson Trust. In 2022 we were delighted to receive a substantial grant from the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society (with whom we have enjoyed the most cordial relations) towards our work on Newport.

We are also grateful to many individuals and bodies within the county for their donations, large and small.

Details of our work can be found in our annual reports. We present an annual report each October before an annual lecture to which all are invited. We encourage people to sign up to our mailing list to receive our occasional newsletters.

Our work can go faster or slower according to the resources available to us. We are always pleased to hear from volunteers who wish to help with the transcription of materials or act as contributing authors. We welcome donations and bequests to help our work. We have listed some of our priorities where we are looking for funding on the next page.

VCH Shropshire is formally constituted as a limited company with charitable purposes: it is also registered with the charity commissioners. As a limited company it has a board of directors but it also has a committee which meets roughly quarterly. We are always interested in reinforcing the committee with individuals committed to our aims, especially if they can bring expertise that the committee currently lacks. (We have enthusiasm in abundance but more of that is welcome too!)