Hulme Trust Archive

The archive of one of the North West's oldest educational charities

Thanks to a grant from the Hulme Trust, between 2015 and 2018 work was undertaken to list (with itemised descriptions) and conserve the substantial Hulme Trust Archive for future researchers. We have created digital facsimiles of the medieval deeds, so that they can be made freely available online, and held ‘open archive’ events to give visitors the opportunity to get up close to the medieval material, handle items, and ask questions about the collection and its history.

As of September 2018, you can now search records for much of the Hulme Trust Archive online on Chetham’s new archives and manuscripts catalogue. If you’d like to see records that have scans of medieval and early deeds attached to them, try our Advanced Search, tick the ‘only items with images’ box and enter ‘Hulme’ in the title search box. Or try this link, which puts the same searches into ready to use form.

Held at the Library since 1969, the Hulme Trust Archive includes some of the oldest surviving documents relating to Manchester (as early as 1280) and provides a window onto Greater Manchester society, landholding, education, and local philanthropy, throughout eight centuries.

The Hulme Charity was established with the will of William Hulme, a wealthy Lancashire landowner, who died in 1691. Originally set up to provide for ‘four poor bachelors’ at Brasenose College, Oxford (where William had been a student) the foundation’s charitable objectives expanded to include educational grants for schools, and provision for parishes throughout the Greater Manchester region.
The archive runs to thousands of documents, including legal papers, plans, letters, newspaper cuttings, and accounts.

While we’re still working on the definitive catalogue, you can explore some cataloguing of the Hulme Trust archive on the Archives Hub.