Arts Council of Great Britain: records, 1928-1997

Series description

Context

Responsibility for Regional matters within the Arts Council was regularly subject to organisational restructuring and consequently the surviving records were found in considerable disorder.

The Regional Development Department had been established during the early 1970s, but it was soon disbanded when in 1976 Neil Duncan, its Director, resigned. Reponsibility for regional development was assumed by the then Deputy Secretary General, Angus Stirling and in 1979/80 a new Regional Department was created.

These files were distinguished as belonging to the Regional Development Department by a numbered series of transfer cases. However the cases often actually contain material which is dated after the Regional Development Department had disbanded and the Regional Department had taken over. This suggests that the files were mainly created in the early 1970s and then remained in operational use with the Regional Department which followed.

Series ACGB/113 contains those files relating specifically to Combined / Community Arts and Arts Centres which were not distinguished as Regional Development Department records. However, there is clearly a considerable overlap between the records of ACGB/103, ACGB/112 and ACGB/113, due to organisational restructuring of the Arts Council and passing on of regional matters from one department to another. In order to preserve the original order in which the files were found though, no attempt has been made to merge the records into one series. Researchers are strongly advised, therefore to consider all three series for papers relating to regional matters.

Scope and content

The records of this series reflect various aspects of the Department's work. The majority of these files relate to the Regional Arts Associations and Community Arts and Arts Centres. The bulk of the material on Arts Centres in this series is concentrated on those who remained direct clients of the ACGB - not their RAA, thus there are detailed and lengthy files here on The Roundhouse, The Riverside Studios, The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Cannon Hill Trust / Midlands Arts Centre (the MAC), South Hill Park. Each one of these typically contains: applications for funding, minutes from board meetings, annual reports, correspondence, show reports, and publicity material. There are also many files relating to the Combined Arts section of Regional Development (which later went on to become a separate unit after the 1985/86 restructuring). From the early 1980s the Combined Arts Unit, and its Sub-Committee, had three principal areas of responsibility: Special Applications, Community Arts, and Arts Centres. In addition to this material, there are files connected with a number of advisory committees, panels, and boards; there are also further records concerning more general departmental issues such as finance, policy and organisational structure. Over the time period covered by this series, the ACGB underwent a number of organisational changes at committee, and sub-committee level. This sometimes resulted in a certain amount of duplication as responsibility for clients, and their files, was transferred between committees.

Arrangement

This series has been sorted into six categories: (1) Regional Department Committees and Officers (2) Regional Arts Associations (RAAs) and Local Arts Councils (3) Arts Centres and Theatres (4) Theatre / Drama / Festival Groups (non-building based ACGB clients) (5) Community Arts (6) Miscellaneous. The files are arranged chronologically by start date within each category.

Access

General information on access to archives at the V&A is available on the archive pages of the V&A website.

Restrictions on access

Access to some unpublished material may be restricted and requests for access can take up to 20 working days to be processed. When applying for access, it is helpful if you can quote the reference number, title and covering dates of the file(s) in question. For very large requests you are advised to contact us to discuss your requirements. All requests should be sent to archive@vam.ac.uk or Victoria and Albert Museum Archives (ref. ACGB), Blythe House, 23 Blythe Road, London W14 0QX.

Detailed catalogue