In early 2026, the Business Archives Surveying Officer in partnership with Perth & Kinross Archive, is launching a thematic survey of businesses and their archives in the region. Using the expertise and knowledge of the archive team at Perth & Kinross Archive, this project will allow the Surveying Officer to contact over sixty businesses, charities, and organisations to offer them archive management and guidance of their historical records. By undertaking records surveys, the project aims to identify business records of historical, regional, and potentially national significance, ensuring that important collections are preserved for the future.
This project will contact a variety of businesses within the Perth & Kinross area, in order to ensure we are preserving records that reflect the local history and economy of the region. Ranging from textile mills to solicitors, and from hotels to fishmongers, and from businesses that are thirty years old to those that are over a century old, this project will engage with a variety of local trades in order to identify business records of historical importance. Surveys of identified archives can then be added to the National Register of Archives for Scotland in order to encourage their care so that their loss and destruction may be avoided. Further information about what an archive survey involves can be found here.
Perth and Kinross Council leader Councillor Eric Drysdale said: “It is fantastic to see Perth and Kinross Archive working with the Business Archives Surveying Officer on this exciting project.
“The Archive holds historical records for many local businesses and these are used by researchers, business owners, local and family historians for a wide range of purposes. Together these chart and explain how the economy of Perth and Kinross has grown over many generations. Where owners are no longer able to look after their own records, the Archive can provide an alternative home for material of historical significance to ensure it is preserved. In recent years, our partnership with the Business Archives Surveying Officer has helped to safeguard the historical records of McEwens of Perth, Cairncross of Perth, Kilgraston School and Air Service Training Ltd.”
Businesses located within Perth & Kinross that are interested in taking part or receiving an archive survey as part of this regional project are encouraged to get in touch. For further information or to participate, please contact: surveyingofficer@glasgow.ac.uk
A full press release about the project can be read here.