Research

The Museum welcomes research enquiries and requests for information, including family history requests concerning individual soldiers. The fee required for this research is the primary source of funding the Archives and the Archive Research Service. For an initial enquiry we ask for a fee of £20, which we hope you will Gift Aid to the museum. For this, you will receive up to one hour of research for relevant information and the preparation of an informative response. Occasionally, we believe more information could become available if more time were spent. If this is the case, you will be informed and we will quote for the additional work.

Before requesting a search, it is very important to note the following:

We only have a limited ability to carry out research on individual officers or soldiers as we do not hold the personal records of those who served. These are the property of the State. Those wishing to research personal records are advised in the first place to contact either the National Archives or the appropriate Armed Forces Personnel Centre. Those looking for an individual who was killed in either the 1st or 2nd World Wars should also check the website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), where details of every British and Commonwealth soldier killed in action can be easily accessed.

Nevertheless information on many individuals can be provided if they were mentioned in Regimental Journals, battalion war diaries (WWI only) or other regimental documentation now lodged in the Archive. In addition, if the battalion is known, information can be provided on the movements, locations and activities of an individual’s unit at a given time, or even on a specific date. However, these details are not indexed and a search may take some time.

We can only research the soldiers who have served with the 38th, 64th, 80th and 98th Regiment Foot, the South and North Staffordshire Regiment, The Staffordshire Regiment including the Territorials, service battalions. Some archives of local militia and volunteer regiments have also survived.

Enquirers may carry out personal research in the Archives, and will be assisted by one of our dedicated but small team of Volunteers; the fee of £20 will be applied for the first hour. Additional research and costs will then be agreed upon by the researchers.

We are also happy to receive enquiries by post. These are then also researched by a Volunteer. In either case, a research inquiry can take several hours to complete. If the search is for details of an individual soldier, IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE THAT NO INFORMATION WILL BE FOUND. Nevertheless, because of the time which has inevitably been taken, the research fee will still be required. Please bear in mind that the fee does go directly to help fund the Archive.

We are dependent on our small team of Volunteers to carry out postal request searches. As indicated above, each can take several hours to complete. At times there can be a heavy backload of requests, which are dealt with in strict order of receipt. Please therefore allow 3 WEEKS for a request to be completed, although we would normally hope to complete a request more quickly.

Fees

The Regimental Archive and the Archive Research Service is funded through donations and research fees. Cheques should be made payable to The Staffordshire Regiment Museum. Fees required:

Postal Search: (up to 1 hour) £20
Assisted Personal Search: for 1 hour - £20

Additional Charges:

A photocopy of a digital image of a book’s page or a document is £0.50 plus p&p
An image of a photograph is £7 for black and white for standard sizes up to A4, or £10 plus p&p for colour for standard sizes up to A4
£5 for an email image

Unfortunately, we can only accept cash payments or cheques. Please make all cheques payable to The Staffordshire Regiment Museum.

Please complete the Gift Aid Declaration and return it with your donation.

Personal Research

PLEASE NOTE THAT PERSONAL RESEARCHES ARE VERY STRICTLY BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

The Archive is open for assisted personal research on Thursdays from 1000 to 1600 hours.

To download the research form, please click here.

To download our ‘Archive Charges’ document, please click here.

To download our ‘Gift Aid Declaration’ document, please click here.