The
Trust was originally established at the instance of the National Bus
Company (NBC) when it was feared that a considerable volume of their
papers, especially relating to planning, technical, vehicle, trade
union and individual company matters, would be at best dispersed, or at
worst disposed of, because the Public Record Office felt that such
papers were not appropriate to its own archive.
Extensive
enquiries were made to find a safe haven for these NBC papers but none
of the many bodies approached were able to help at that time so it was
necessary to “go it alone” in order to ensure that much valuable
material was not lost and hence our Trust was formed. The name
Kithead arises from the fact that we leased a specially constructed
building from Kithead Limited and no more appropriate name could be
thought of at that time.
In 1990 the Trust was accepted
and registered by the Charity Commissioners as an educational charity.
In
order to accommodate additional material, it became necessary in 1995
to build an extension to the archive. This work was entirely funded
by Messrs Arthur Townsend O.B.E. and David Beaman. A further
extension in 1999 was funded in similar fashion by Messrs Garry Charles
and Andrew Vernon and in each case their generosity has been recognized
by attaching their names to the archive.
Thanks
to the generosity of National Express and of Stagecoach Holdings, we
were able to install a system of heating and air conditioning which
ensures that temperature and humidity remain within the limits
recommended by the British Standard Specification for archives.
In
2004, the Trust bought out by agreement the interests of the
shareholders in Kithead Limited and we have taken over that part of the
building previously occupied by the company. This has enabled us to
provide better facilities for visitors as well as enlarging our storage
space considerably.
The
work of cataloguing is done entirely by volunteers and is therefore a
somewhat slow procedure. Efforts are being concentrated on listing
older, or previously published, material which can be made immediately
available to researchers.
