Gloucester MP Richard Graham has presented Gloucestershire County Council’s Head of Archives Heather Forbes with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the prestigious All Party Parliamentary Group on Archives and History.
Richard said the group only gave two awards each year: one to a historian and one to an archivist. “The 2016 awards went to historian Sir Michael Howard MC CBE (described by the FT as Britain’s greatest living historian) and Heather Forbes.
She is Gloucestershire’s great star in leading the transformation and modernisation of our archives and information, helping countless others’ Heritage Lottery Fund bids, creating the Gloucester Heritage Forum and winning the Archives’ own bid that will leave a great legacy in Alvin Street. So Heather Forbes has given our city, as well as our county, great service.”
“If that wasn’t enough”, added Richard, “Heather has also set up a programme of co-ordination on ideas and best practice with eleven other local authorities.
Heather has achieved so much in her five years in Canterbury and eleven years at Gloucester. All residents should try to go and see our Archives, look at the maps of how their street developed and hear what the Family History Centre does. It’s a great success story – which is why Heather deserves this award.”
