The archive is extensive and we aim to make many of these images available online.
*2023 UPDATE* - We have Upcoming Events to raise awareness of the collection and our project. Photographs of community events held at Burnley Central Library in the 1960's to 1980's are still on display in the new Local History section in the library basement.
LOST BUILDINGS OF BURNLEY is a NEW display now at Gannow Community Centre.
LOOK OUT FOR our events to celebrate the completion of our Heritage Lottery Fund grant in March 2023 and please let us know how you have used and enjoyed our website. Your comments will be used in our monitoring report and will also help us to get support from other organisations in order to continue adding more images and stories into the future.
There are now over 10,500 images on the website. Our archive rooms are now fully operational although we continue to take a cautious approach. We WELCOME NEW VOLUNTEERS and have vacancies on our Thursday afternoon sessions. If you can spare a couple of hours why not contact us and arrange a visit to the archive. All that is needed are some basic computer skills and an interest in local history.
PENDLE AND WEST CRAVEN images in the Surrounding Districts pages will also now include images from 1963 to 1970 which are scanned from negatives (in addition to those scanned from photographs). These image stories are being transcribed from Nelson Library newspaper film rolls.
50 years Ago
Mr Butterfield dictating correspondence to his secretary, Mrs Rawlinson.
From an article by Peter Higgs:
It is now more than seven years since Jack Butterfield gave up a steady job and moved into a little wooden hut to make money for Burnley Football Club. The work was completely new to him but it presented a challenge he could not ignore. Injury had forced a premature end to his playing career with Burnley more than 15 years previously but he secretly longed to return and be part of the football club again. So when Burnley chairman Mr Bob Lord asked him to run what in those days were called the "pools" he accepted. The Turf Moor Development Association was born. From those humble beginnings in a shed behind the Bee Hole end of Turf Moor it has flourished and grown.
Its field of responsibility has broadened to include commercial projects ranging from helping to organise the football League's first ever "supertrain" to the provision of meat pies on match days at Turf Moor. From just two part-time assistants the staff has grown to seven full-time and five part-time assistants plus more than 100 people who work on match days.
