Glanbrook Heritage Society
Spring 2024 Society Updates!
A much-delayed hello to those who have been members of, or shown an interest in, the Glanbrook Heritage Society and its ongoing mission to preserve the history of Glanbrook, Binbrook and Glanford in their various shapes. The onset of the “great plague” in 2020 resulted in a shutdown of activities which is slowly showing signs of life, however feeble.
Correspondence by email and occasional visits by appointment to the Society’s archives have kept the spark of heritage interest alive. Two projects have been ongoing, albeit slowly; Hamilton Spectator transcriptions of vital statistics and the inventory of headstones throughout the area. Now, even these activities appear to be threatened.
The Society has received notice that, after close to 40 years existence, a liability insurance policy is now required to operate our little two-room archives for 6 hours a week for nine and one half months a year. The estimated cost for such coverage is $600 to $1,000 per year. That would provide for the dropping of an historical book on the toe of one of the (on average) three visitors per month. With a current bank balance of under $3,000, and very little income, the financial life expectancy of the Society is three to five years.
One option is to get insurance and revisit the issue in two to three years. A couple of years ago, there was a meeting between the Society, former councillor Brenda Johnson and the Hamilton Public Library. There was a feeling that the Library could use the Society’s space and resources as a “satellite” for the HPL. A further, perhaps final, course of action is to return the keys to city hall and take early retirement and let the civil service run the show. The course of action will depend on members’ thoughts and suggestions, followed by a general meeting of those interested in the Society’s future.
We have an email for correspondence and phone numbers for contact on our website. Sorry, no text capability.
Here’s a bit of additional information about the ongoing items -
The Spectator vital statistics, 1846 to 1902, are now all digitized and the website postings are complete up to 1903 is presently being added.
The headstones current inventory stands at just under, 23, 600 photos, from 91 cemeteries in 5 counties. Digital cameras are wonderful things (not an iphone picture among the photos!)
Villages of Glanbrook
Click on the links below to discover more about the communities that form the region
of Glanbrook:
About The Glanbrook Heritage Society
To simplify local historical interests, one group was needed to collect, maintain and preserve the creation and history of the former Townships of Binbrook and Glanford. These were amalgamated to form the Township of Glanbrook in the Regional Municipality of Hamilton Wentworth in 1974. The Glanbrook Heritage Society is the name change ratified by the Glanford Historical Society (established as a registered non-profit organization in 1984)for use with the merger of the Binbrook Historical Society (est.in 1975), the Maggie Johnson Heritage Foundation (est. 1985) and the Glanford Historical Society.
Since the disappearance of Binbrook, Glanford and most recently Glanbrook more and more information vanishes forever as papers and pictures are destroyed and the older generations pass away along with their knowlege. To minimize the loss of this information the former societies have undertaken the task of collecting the history of the townships to be presented in the public in book form. This has been done to a certain extent with the publication of four books by the two historical societies.
Charitable Registration # 0673681-50
Volunteer Web Design: Maria Mitchell-Pyne
© Glanbrook Heritage Society 2024
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