A PROJECT is being launched to catalogue more than a third of an archive relating to the Durham Light Infantry (DLI) for the first time.

The DLI: A Whole New Story project is aimed at cataloguing the entire collection and making it available online.

About 39 per cent of the archive, which is kept at Durham’s County Hall, in Aykley Heads, has never been catalogued before.

It has grown significantly in recent years as more material is discovered and donated.

Councillor Joy Allen, cabinet member for transformation, culture and tourism at Durham County Council, said: “The extensive DLI Archive is of international significance and cataloguing this material will enable us to shed further light on our rich and varied past and ensure that the DLI’s history and heritage is not lost.”

Durham County Record Office has been given £39,000 by Archives Revealed for the project, as well as £11,000 from the Army Museums Ogilby Trust.

The Northern Echo:

An ink drawing of the battle of Ginnis, in the Sudan, by Captain Alfred William Baker of the 2nd Battalion DLI.

Archivists are hoping the material, which includes letters and other documents, will reveal fresh perspectives on historic events and uncover previously untold stories.

The project will also play a role in modernising and relocating the collection, along with military objects currently housed in a facilty in Spennymoor, to a new Durham History Centre, which is due to open at Mount Oswald Manor, Durham, in 2022.

It is hoped the collection will be digitised with detailed descriptions and images to offer an insight into military life from the 1750s to when the DLI disbanded in 1968.

The uncatalogued material provides descriptions of regimental life, with personal accounts, photographs and paintings portraying the realities of war, shining a light on unfamiliar landscapes and architecture.

Colonel James Ramsbotham, chairman of the DLI Trustees, said: “The DLI is much-loved and respected by the people of County Durham, and its outstanding archive is already used daily by people across the world.

“The trustees are extremely grateful to the Archives Revealed panel and we are delighted that remaining regimental archives can be made accessible, and so tell a whole new story.”

The Northern Echo:

A watercolour of Abbs Battery at Sunderland, from the records of Lieutenant General Horatio Harbord Morant from the 68th Light Infantry

Among the documents included within the grant application was a detailed black and red ink drawing of the battlefield at Ginnis in the Sudan, which is dated December 30, 1885 and is from the sketchbook of Lieutenant, later Captain, Alfred William Baker of the 2nd Battalion DLI.

Another example is a watercolour of Abbs Battery at Sunderland, from the records of Lieutenant General Horatio Harbord Morant from the 68th Light Infantry. The painting depicts Roker Pier lighthouse and is dated 1874, when Morant was in command of the 3rd Brigade Depot in Sunderland.