Abstract

In 1992, a project was started to digitise the Manorial Documents Register (MDR) and to make this resource more widely available. The project has been completed county by county and with only two counties left to complete their projects, it is expected to conclude in 2022, thirty years after the beginning of the digitisation project and 100 years after the Law of Property Act (1922). This PhD by Practice follows the completion of the Lincolnshire Project, with reflection on the methods and the challenges associated with this project, displayed in the creation of a Reflective Journal. This journal is used within the thesis as a primary source, to highlight the practice and explain decisions made throughout the three-year project. The thesis also examines how the project to digitise the MDR has evolved over its thirty-year timeline, questioning whether later projects were influenced by those before. To do this a small sample of previous county projects have been examined. Three counties were selected for analysis, each from approximately eight to ten years apart. This analysis highlights the differences between the projects and the unique challenges faced by each, but also the elements which remained the same and were standardised throughout. This analysis is used to form conclusions on the place of the MDR as a digitised search-tool in the present day, and how the MDR Project has been able to successfully conclude after a thirty-year timeline. As this thesis has been completed as part of a PhD by Practice, it also examines the appropriateness of research by practice as a means of interrogating the development of differing approaches over time to the MDR project. Various models for Practice as Research are analysed and used within this thesis, to outline how they can fit with the analysis of archival practice and as such, the thesis also provides a framework which can contribute to scholarship in future research by practice.