Sheffield Archives (located in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England) collects, preserves and lists records (or archives) relating to Sheffield and South Yorkshire and makes them available for reference and research. Sheffield Archives is a joint service with Sheffield Local Studies Library. They are part of the Sheffield Libraries Archives and Information Service delivered by Sheffield City Council History of archive collecting in Sheffield Up to 1939 Sheffield’s Central Library was officially opened in 1934. In planning it Mr J. P. Lamb, who was then City Librarian, gave considerable thought to the accommodation and expansion of the local history and 'special' collections (as they were then called). A large reading room was provided to accommodate readers and house the local collection of printed material; there were storage facilities for maps and special collections in an adjoining room and two small strongrooms in the basement, providing about 700 feet of shelving for manuscripts. During the previous twenty-five years the beginnings of a local collection of archives had been brought together, particularly through the assistance of a Sheffield solicitor, T. Walter Hall, himself a competent antiquary and from 1910 to 1926 a co-opted member of the Libraries Committee. Through his good offices the Library in 1912 acquired the Jackson collection, consisting of many original documents and a large amount of genealogical material. This was followed by two fine solicitors' accumulations (Wheat and Tibbitts), subsequently added to, and a number of smaller groups. Finally in 1933, in anticipation of the opening of the new building, the Fairbank collection of several thousand draft maps and plans, accumulated by a local family of surveyors between c. 1740 and 1840, was given to the Library. About the same time the executors of Edward Carpenter, the socialist writer who had lived at Holmesfield near Sheffield, presented the Carpenter collection comprising Carpenter's library, editions of his works, and manuscript material. In 1926 the Library had been recognized by the Master of the Rolls as a repository for manorial records. The nearest institutions collecting documents and archives at this time were at Leeds (the Yorkshire Archaeological Society and Leeds Public Libraries), Manchester (John Rylands Library) and Derby (Derby Public Library). Though the Yorkshire Archaeological Society aimed at covering the whole of Yorkshire, it was not very active in the southern part of the West Riding and the other three scarcely impinged on the Sheffield region. From the first Sheffield therefore aimed