Archives

An archive is a collection of the historical documents of an institution or community. The FR and WHR have generated material throughout their lives. When the revivalists entered Harbour Station and Boston Lodge in 1954 they found a remarkable collection of material dating from the days of the old FR Company as far back as 1832. The Festiniog Railway Company Archives are a unique record of the development of a railway. These materials were eventually presented to Gwynedd Archives and are housed in Caernarfon.

The Company's first archivist, Michael Seymour, published regularly in the Ffestiniog Railway Magazine. In 1959 he reports on correspondence in 1927 between Colonel Stephens, the railway's Managing Director, Engineer and Loco Superintendent, and Robert Evans the FR Traffic Manager at Porthmadog. In the previous number he wrote about the design of the FR's first steam locomotives, the Englands and correspondence dated from 1861. The next Magazine number follows up on this same subject. It is not hard to imagine the young Mike Seymour enjoying himself as he delved into the treasure trove of old papers stored on the railway. The FR Co's archive policy was published in FR Magazine 109 of 1985 over the initials of DP (David Pollock), MS (Michael Seymour) and PGM (??). It sets out a definition of the archives, the justification of them, their aims and the allocation of responsibility for execution of the policy. In FR Magazine 145 of Summer 1994 the same policy is approved by the FR Trust on behalf of the FR Co. In this case again the policy is commendably brief occupying only half a page of the magazine. The initials at the foot are B.W.O.C. (Brian Chicken).

The transfer of the old FR Company archive to Gwynedd Archives took place in 1993 after the pre-1954 archive had been sorted and listed. The drawings were in many cases in poor shape and required the skilled work of a qualified document conservator with this expensive work grant aided. The input from the Gwynedd Archives and Museums Service has been invaluable and the funds were found by the FR Trust.

As the FR institutions developed into the FR family of today of Festiniog Railway Company, Ffestiniog Railway Society and Festiniog Railway Trust etc., so the collections increased in number. In general post 1954 archives are held at Minffordd. The FR post 1954 has had a series of honorary archivists of whom Michael Seymour and Adrian Gray were among the most long serving. The archives currently often feature in FR Magazine with information about the archives of the Company and Society. The work to appraise, eliminate duplicates and catalogue modern papers is ongoing. In 2023 the archivist for the FRS is Phil Hawkins and the archivist for the FR Company is Chris Jones. The archivist for the WHRS is Gareth Williams and that of the WHHG is Dick Lystor.