Our Friends of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland  have been supporting the work of the Record Office since 1984. They are our official supporters; promoting our service and providing funds to help our work. Membership is open to all and new Friends are always welcome. The President of our friends is the well-known historian and broadcaster, Michael Wood, whose television series The Story of England, made great use of the Record Office.

Michael Wood filming The Story of England with Senior Archivist, Robin Jenkins

The Friends also co-ordinate much of the volunteer work carried out here. There is a busy Indexing group, producing databases of local records, such as Workhouse Admissions and Discharges, Alehouse Records, and Quarter Sessions records of criminals, prisoners and bastardy cases, which are published and sold as CDs.

Members of the Friends receive regular reports of Record Office activities through a quarterly newsletter, The Dustsheet. The Friends are always the first to hear of lectures and other events held at the Record Office. An Occasional Paper is also published from time to time. Past issues have included The Burning Question – the struggle for Women’s Suffrage in Leicestershire and Know your Place, a guide to local maps. The current paper is a copy of the Buck brothers’ South Prospect of Leicester, originally engraved in 1743.