The end

The project to catalogue the first third of the Chance Brothers collection officially came to an end in the last week of July. I feel privileged to have worked with the archives of such an important and underrated company and I am delighted that many of the key records are now finally accessible to the public. I had such a wonderful time working with my colleagues (Sarah, Mo, Richard, Sophie, Matt, Keith and Donna) at CHAS and I would like to thank them for all of the help and support they have given me over the past 12 months. I would also like to thank Alan Taylor, John Everall, Sue Wood, David Encill, Ray Drury and Philip Barnard for their interest and expertise where it has been needed and a big thank you goes out to Sir Jeremy, Toby, Sebastian and the rest of the Chance family for supporting this project from its start right through to its end.

Although, despite the title of this post, I do not see this as the end. It is more the closing of the first chapter of the collection's life here at CHAS. The rest of the collection will be gradually catalogued over the coming years and I hope that the interest in the company will continue to grow as it has done during this project. If you are interested in accessing the catalogue it is now available to view online on the Black Country History Website at http://blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/GB146_BS6/. Please keep the history of this amazing company alive by visiting CHAS to take a look at the records yourself or by contacting the archive with your enquiries at archives_service@sandwell.gov.uk.

Finally, I would like to say thank you to you....yes you, reading this post right now. Whether you became an official follower of this blog or just accessed it from time to time to read about my progress, I am extremely grateful for your interest and support. It has been a real challenge but I feel that you were there with me at every stage. Thank you for taking a Chance on me and my blog!