The West Sussex Archives Society (WSAS) Committee works to support West Sussex Record Office projects and an active membership, through various events, newsletters, conferences, etc. The committee meets regularly to manage and to undertake various activities on behalf of its membership. If you are interested in joining the committee, please contact us.
Richard Howell – Chairman
Richard Howell – ChairmanI have lived in Worthing almost all my life and I have always been passionate about history and old buildings. This passion together with a realisation that much of the history of a building lies in its construction led me to do a two-year part-time course at the University of Oxford studying Vernacular Architecture. After that I continued my studies by studying for a BA in Landscape Studies at the University of Sussex, finally graduating in 2011. I have written articles for a number of local and national publications and am currently contributing a regular feature on historic buildings for the West Sussex Gazette. I also undertake freelance commissions for people wanting to discover the history of their own properties.
Leigh Lawson – Secretary
Leigh Lawson – SecretaryIn 1989, I was asked to help with the research for a history of the Petworth Emigration Committee (PEC), sponsored by the University of Toronto. In Sussex, we tried to establish the names of the 1,800 emigrants who were sent to Canada under the auspices of the PEC. Two books were published in 2000, one a history of the emigration scheme containing details of the names we found, and the other edited letters written by the emigrants which were published at the time as pamphlets and in local newspapers. Since then, I have assisted my colleague Sheila Haines, with a biography of Thomas Sockett, rector of Petworth and a member of the PEC. Sheila and I, with Alison McCann, then embarked on a biography of Elizabeth Ilive, long time mistress and then wife of the 3rd Earl of Egremont. This was published in 2017.
Helen Whittle – Journal Editor
I am a writer and freelance historical researcher (now retired). I have written articles for various publications such as Family Tree Magazine, Who Do You Think You Are? and other family history journals. I published The Clergy of Sussex c.1635-1665 (2019) which is a Directory of clergy who served the whole of Sussex during that period, based on research carried out for my (now abandoned) PhD. A second edition came out in 2023.
I produced a collection of abstracts of clergy wills for Sussex Record Society, [Vol. 103 (2023)], also based on my earlier research. I have been Editor of West Sussex History since 2011 and was organiser of the WSAS Conference in 2019 which examined the impact that the civil wars and interregnum had on Sussex society.
Sue Millard – Information Manager
I was born in Chichester and attended Chichester High School for Girls. However, I did not complete my education until I became a mature student at West Sussex Institute of Higher Education (now Chichester University), where I gained a 2:1 BA (Hons) in History with Education. I joined West Sussex Record Office in 1990 when the ‘new’ Record Office had just opened. I was Searchroom Supervisor for nearly ten years but after gaining my professional qualification I became Searchroom Archivist.
I am now retired but my time at the Record Office encompassed not only working with the public in the Searchroom but also working on Outreach projects, many of these together with my colleague Caroline Adams. During the last few years I was responsible for the large number Record Office volunteers, which was very time consuming but also extremely rewarding. I have also contributed to a number of local history publications.
Annette Lloyd Thomas – Committee Member
Born in Lewes to an English mother and French-Canadian father, I spent over five decades in Toronto before returning to Sussex in 2022 on retirement from a rewarding career in elementary education. My father’s Second World War service first shaped my enduring commitment to historical inquiry, later refined through degrees in Geography, History, and Education at York University (Toronto), where I learned to favour primary evidence over inherited narratives. Since 1999 I have pursued an extensive investigation into the life of John ‘Mad Jack’ Fuller, a project that has taken me to archives from Auckland to Austin. In 2020, I published a biography of this eccentric Georgian Sussex squire. Stewardship of a sizable family archive has prompted deeper reflection on the long-term preservation of digital communication. For me, history is both a record of our past and a means of illuminating the path ahead.
John Mills – Committee Member
I took a B.A. degree in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University of London in 1978-81, and was employed as an archaeologist for the Museum of London for the next ten years, working on multi-period rural sites and running historic town centre excavations in the west of Greater London, subsequently project-managing excavations there. From 1992-2021 I worked as an archaeological officer for West Sussex County Council, providing archaeological advice to the County Council and several district councils on town planning and other development schemes all over the county, finishing as County Archaeologist. In my teens in Surrey, I began looking into my family history and visiting Record Offices; in London I started researching the property history of outer London town sites that I was excavating. My spare-time interests in local history, property history, historic buildings, and archives, especially for the Early Modern period, as well as archaeology of all periods, have continued and expanded whilst working in Sussex. In retirement, I am a volunteer with Worthing Archaeological Society, on their excavations and on their finds team, and amongst other local history projects am compiling records on 17th-century alehouse keepers in West Sussex, from sources at West Sussex and East Sussex Record Offices and in The National Archives.
Mike Kipling – Committee Member
Mike Kipling is a retired actuary from Horsham who holds an Oxford DPhil in English Local History. His current research interest is early modern Sussex, especially the mercantile classes of Chichester. He is working on a project at the National Archives to catalogue the Jacobean papers of the Court of Requests. He has contributed several articles to West Sussex History in recent years as well as to The Local Historian and Local Population Studies. He is also secretary of the Kipling Society and may in summer occasionally be found at Bateman’s in Burwash reading Rudyard Kipling’s poetry to visitors. He has been a member of the WSAS committee since 2023.
Carol Brinson – Committee Member
I was brought up partly in Chichester, Littlehampton, and Arundel and partly up north in Surrey. I attended Worthing Technical High School (now Durrington High) and what was Chichester College of Further Education where I took a one-year secretarial course. This led to a variety of secretarial jobs until I found myself working for the Director of West Dean College. This resulted from being a volunteer at the Weald & Downland Museum.
On my return from six months travelling in Australia I took a one-year Diploma course at the Polytechnic of Central London in Arts & Leisure Administration, after which I worked for several organisations in the arts and charity fields, including the Farnham Maltings, the National Trust, and back at the Weald & Downland Museum, with very varied roles. As a side-line I was also for several years a part-time library assistant with the West Sussex Library Service, mainly in Midhurst, where I now live.
I am still a volunteer at the Weald & Downland Museum, these days chiefly in their Library. I developed an interest in local history research fairly recently starting with an attempt to solve a mystery about my house and am hooked! I am a member of Midhurst u3a’s Local History Group, and both the Chichester and Midhurst Area Women’s History Groups.
Wendy Walker – County Archivist
I have been working in archives since graduating from the University of Southampton with a BA in Archaeology and History in 1976. I obtained my postgraduate archive qualification at University College London in 1978. My introduction to archives began at school, where I carried out a piece of original research at the Essex Record Office, as part of my A Level History exam. I then extended my research over the following summer for the Emmison Prize and thus began a life long passion for archives. I began my professional career as an archivist at the Essex Record Office in 1978 and moved to Lewes in 1993 to work at the East Sussex Record Office. At East Sussex, I worked as an archivist, records manager and latterly as the programme manager for The Keep, overseeing the exciting project to develop and build the new historical resource centre for East Sussex, Brighton & Hove and the University of Sussex, which was opened by the Queen and Prince Philip in 2013. I joined the staff at the West Sussex Record Office as County Archivist in 2013 and am delighted to be working with the West Sussex Archives Society in helping to preserve the wonderful archives of the county and making these rich and varied collections accessible to everyone.