BEHP to collaborate on major BBC/Sussex University Project

The BEHP is one of a number of key partners contributing to a major new project, BBC Connected Histories, that will tell the story of the BBC directly through the voices of the people who worked there. 

"BBC Connected Histories is a dynamic and ground-breaking collaboration between the BBC and the University of Sussex, creating a new digital catalogue of hundreds of rarely seen audio and video interviews with former BBC staff – from those in the corridors of power to those at the broadcasting coal face. The project is also supported by key partners in the field: the BBC itself, the Science Museum Group (which includes the National Media Museum in Bradford), the Mass Observation Archive based in Brighton, and the British Entertainment History Project. All will be providing vital access to additional archive materials and resources, as well as collaborating on technological design and helping to develop the potential for further research activities.

Notable interviewees recorded over the years include Sir David Attenborough, the drama director Sydney Newman (creator of Doctor Who) and the pioneer of political programming Grace Wyndham Goldie. Also featured are BBC Directors-General and Chairmen, politicians involved in the nation’s broadcasting policy including Harold Wilson and Tony Benn, as well as less establishment figures, such as telephonists who worked at the BBC's Savoy Hill headquarters in the 1920s.

The BBC Connected Histories project will run for nearly five years in the lead-up to the Corporation’s centenary in 2022, and is being funded by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) totalling nearly £790,000, a record sum for the Sussex Humanities Lab since its programme of research began in 2015."

The above details were taken from the full Press Release here: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressrelease/id/39459

Additional detailed Project information, from the Research Council, is available here:http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/projects?ref=AH%2FP005837%2F1