Print this pageParish Councils were formed in England 135 years ago under the Local Government Act of 1894 to take over civic duties in rural towns and villages like Cossall.
Cossall is very fortunate that the minutes, which were taken at these meetings right back to 1894, were handwritten in a series of seven beautifully bound leather books which are still in our possession.
The Government, some time ago made available an amount of money called the “Transparency fund”, this was to enable small councils with a limited budget to apply for funding to assist with the publication of Council Minutes etc. on the website, Cossall was successful in its bid for funding and things are moving along nicely.
One of the things we decided to do with the grant we received was to purchase a book scanner to enable us to digitise the old minute books and publish them on the website.
We would like to form a group of interested people to carry out this work, instead of being a hard and boring task, we intend to try and make it an interesting series of get-togethers. We can read and enjoy the books whilst providing this important act of preserving our history.
This could build into something really useful and exciting so if you have any other papers you think would be suitable and would like to have them saved for posterity, these could also be scanned as well.
The old Minutes documents are available to download on the Minutes page.
No computer skills are necessary at all and tea and coffee making ability would be a much-appreciated asset.
If you are at all interested in taking part or just want to come and look at the books, please get in touch (details below):
Councillor John Wheatley
Email: j.b.wheatley@btinternet.com
Phone: 07976877603 (please leave a message if no reply)
Or call at Church Cottage, 22 Church Lane. (I’ll let you have a sneaky look at the books)