Sussex IndustrialSIAS has, over the last few years, been the grateful recipient of a number of legacies, most recently from the late Brian Austin. Brian was a founder member of SIAS in 1967 and the editor of Sussex Industrial History from 1985 to 2018, during which time our publication won the AIA award twice for best journal. He had a longstanding and deep knowledge of many aspects of Sussex’s past history, including industrial archaeology.
The SIAS Committee has ring-fenced a small part of these funds to support and develop the Society and has decided that the remaining money should be made available in the form of grants to support industrial heritage and archaeology projects in, or related to, Sussex. This is in line with one of four key objectives listed in the SIAS Constitution – ‘to promote the preservation and restoration of industrial buildings and plant of historical or technical importance’.
Registered Sussex charitable organisations are therefore invited to apply to SIAS for grants that would support this objective. The high level intention is twofold: firstly that the grant should enable a project to go ahead that might not otherwise do so and secondly that through publicity, it should promote knowledge of and interest in the field of industrial heritage and archaeology in general and SIAS in particular. It is intended that the grant programme will be spread over a few years in order maximise the visibility of our sector and the SIAS role in promoting it.
SIAS has provided a number of grants to projects in recent years. By way of guidance, two are listed below
Amberley Museum
Amberley Museum operates a steam hauled narrow gauge railway which provides its visitors with trips. One carriage was built by Robert Hudson, Leeds in 1940 for the RAF for use at Fauld, Staffordshire and was later owned by ME Engineering Ltd, Cricklewood. It is now used by the Museum to carry disabled passengers, including wheelchairs. After many years of use at Amberley, it needed to be re-wheeled in order to continue safe operation and SIAS paid the cost of this, £8,000.
Blue Plaque St Ann’s Well Gardens, Hove
SIAS paid some £1,500 to install a Blue Plaque in St Ann’s Well Gardens, Hove to recognise the flying of coal gas balloons there between 1901 – 1903 by two of the Short Brothers. These aviation pioneers went on to found the Short Brothers Aircraft Company, which designed and built many pioneering aircraft, including the Sunderland Flying Boat and the four engined Stirling bomber, both of which made significant contributions to the Second World War.
