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AGM 7th April 2025
We will be holding our 2025 Annual General Meeting on 7th April at 6.30pm. This year we will meet via Zoom.
Details and accompanying papers have been sent out to all members. If any have not received these by Monday 17th March, please advise either our Secretary, Margaret Simons, at secretary@berkshirerecordsociety.org.uk, or our Membership Secretary, Paul Gardner, at membership@berkshirerecordsociety.org.uk
The AGM will be followed by two short presentations giving an insight into projects in progress.
If you are not yet a member of BRS, and would like to join, either contact the Membership Secretary, or:
Click here to join.
Berkshire Record Society was founded in October 1993 to print scholarly editions of important documents on the history of Berkshire held in the Royal Berkshire Archives (formerly the Berkshire Record Office) and elsewhere. Our aim is to publish one volume each year and we welcome ideas for new projects.
Before the Society was formed there was no systematic programme of publishing historic records in Berkshire. Yet the county has a rich heritage of written records. The Society has selected a wide variety of documents ranging in date from the middle ages to the nineteenth century as the subjects for its volumes. Twenty-six volumes have been published and more are in preparation. Each volume contains the printed transcript of an original text, fully annotated, with a scholarly introduction and an index.
The Society is backed by the History Department of the University of Reading and by the Royal Berkshire Archives and has individual and institutional members from around the world including many leading university and national libraries.
On this website you will find details of the benefits of membership; how to join the Society and how to order our publications which are available to members and to non-members.
Since its foundation, the Society has made an important contribution to scholarship in Berkshire.
Volumes Available
All published volumes are carefully edited, comprehensively indexed and include introductions explaining the background to the documents they present. They are attractively produced and uniformly bound in soft covers.
The majority of past volumes are available for purchase through the Berkshire Record Society.
Volume 1 is now out of print but is available online.
Latest Publication
Greyfriars, Reading: From Prison to Parish Church. Edited by Malcolm Summers
Built around 1300, Greyfriars Church is one of the oldest buildings in Reading and is the only surviving part of the town's Franciscan friary. For almost 250 years, from the early seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth, it was used as the borough prison, or Bridewell. until it was sold to a local clergyman who spearheaded the conversion of the building back to ecclesiastical use. On 2 December 1863 the service of consecration of the 'church of the Grey Friars' was the first public act of worship there since the friary's closure under Henry VIII in September 1538. By using original records, this volume tells the story of when the building was a Bridewell, giving a glimpse inside the walls that only the unfortunate few had at the time. In the early 1860s, the Reverend William Whitmarsh Phelps, offered to buy the site and seek public subscriptions to help restore Greyfriars to church use.The process of purchase was unexpectedly complicated , as shown by the records of title deeds and conveyances included here. Following its restoration and reconsecration, the church became a parish church, serving the local population. Among the records of those early years, the logbooks of the newly established Greyfriars Schools tell a fascinating story of life, particularly for the poor, in the town.
Membership of Berkshire Record Society
Individual – Individuals (over the age of 18 years) who are interested in furthering the work of the Society.
Joint – Two persons residing at the same address and being members of same household may be Joint Members of the Society. Each such Joint Member shall enjoy all the privileges and responsibilities of Individual membership of the Society, including the entitlement to vote at General Meetings of the Society and to stand for election to membership of the Society’s Council, but Joint Members shall be entitled between them to only one copy of each of the Society’s publications.
Corporate – Any body corporate or unincorporated association which is interested in furthering the Society’s work.
Individual
(UK)
- A copy of each volume annually
Joint
(UK)
- A copy of each volume annually
Individual (Overseas)
- A copy of each volume annually
Corporate
(UK)
- A copy of each volume annually
Corporate (Overseas)
- A copy of each volume annually
Our Council Members
Professor Ralph Houlbrooke
Chairman
Dr Margaret Simons
Secretary
