Navigating the Aberdeen Harbour Board collection

We are very excited to announce that details of the Aberdeen Harbour Board collection are now available in our online catalogue. 

The collection is vast- 16 archive boxes, 689 volumes, 642 files, 88 bundles, 18 pamphlets, 264 documents, 2 maps, 2499 sets of plans, c. 1730 glass plates and lantern slides, 4581 photographs, 13 photo albums, & 2 lithographs - and takes up about 80 metres of shelving at Old Aberdeen House. It contains a wealth of information about the Harbour and the people who worked there in the 19th and early 20th century. 

This cataloguing was made possible by a generous donation from the Harbour Board, and funding from the Archives Revealed programme - supported by the National Archives, the Pilgrim Trust and the Wolfson Foundation. This enabled us to employ a dedicated Archivist, Mollie Horne, to work on this collection for a year (albeit with the challenge of the Covid lockdown three months into her work!). You can read more about her work on the Harbour Board Archive blog. 

We are also very grateful to the work of many volunteers during the initial surveying work at the Harbour Board - Debbie, Derek, Eva, Linda, Marlena, Mindy and Sandy put in weeks of work. They helped us list, clean and scan all the glass plate negatives, and list 2,500 plans of buildings constructed across the Harbour estate. 

To give you a little taster of the collection, here are a few gems: 

Photograph and launch menu for the "Annie W. Lewis" dredger (AHB/1/1/12)

An example of one of 94 registers recording the arrival of vessels at the Harbour (AHB/3/3-4)

Colour print of Aberdeen Harbour, from Nigg, engraved by Thomas Higham after William Henry Bartlett, dated 1838 (AHB/11/3/9/176)

“A Letter address to the Harbour Trustees of the City of Aberdeen. By the Gentleman who lately circulated a “Short Statement,” &c. relative to a New Harbour Bill”, published 1826 (AHB/3/12/1)

Receipt from E. Cleugh at the New Inn Tavern for the costs of dinners and drink for the Harbour Commissioners in June 1811 (AHB/2/8/3). The New Inn Tavern was next to the Tolbooth which can be seen in the centre of the image on the receipt.

Plan of improvements at the Harbour by John Rennie, 1797 (AHB/3/12/1)

Plan of improvements at the Harbour by Thomas Telford, 1802 (AHB/3/12/1)

Queen Mother and other dignitaries at the opening of the St Clement's Bridge in 1953 (AHB/11/2/7/M/9)

See our website for details of how to arrange to visit and see the collection.