In planning it Mr J. P. Lamb, who was then City Librarian, gave considerable thought to the accommodation and expansion of the local history and 'special' collections (as they were then called).

During the previous twenty-five years the beginnings of a local collection of archives had been brought together, particularly through the assistance of a Sheffield solicitor, T. Walter Hall, himself a competent antiquary and from 1910 to 1926 a co-opted member of the Libraries Committee.

Through his good offices the Library in 1912 acquired the Jackson collection, consisting of many original documents and a large amount of genealogical material.

Finally in 1933, in anticipation of the opening of the new building, the Fairbank collection of several thousand draft maps and plans, accumulated by a local family of surveyors between c. 1740 and 1840, was given to the Library.

From the first Sheffield therefore aimed to cover an area roughly within thirty miles radius of the Town Hall, including North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

Staff shortages soon meant that only routine attention could be given them, and in December 1941 they were removed for safety to a comparatively rural branch library where premises had been specially strengthened to protect them.

The City Librarian and the Libraries committee agreed to accept them into custody on loan deposit and on 26 and 27 January 1949 three large furniture vans transported the archives to Sheffield.

Following the announcement in the press of the deposit of the Fitzwilliam archives, scholars from both sides of the Atlantic began to make their way to the Library, initially to study the Rockingham and Burke papers.

Two years later Chicago University Press undertook to sponsor a new and full edition of Edmund Burke's correspondence, with Professor Copeland as general editor.

The full-time appointment of an archivist as the National Register of Archives, South Yorkshire committee's representative (working from the Central Library) for about eighteen months during 1953-4 was a great asset at this time.

Worthy of note are council and committee minutes from 1843 onwards; registers of children's homes from 1894; school records from many hundreds of schools, a full series of claims for damage and loss on account of the Sheffield flood of 1864 caused by the bursting of the Damflask reservoir, through to modern papers on the World Student games of 1991 and the recent urban renaissance project - Heart of the City.

The Wentworth Woodhouse Collection (Wentworth-Fitzwilliam family) include personal papers of statesmen such as the Earl of Strafford, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham and Edmund Burke.

Little however survives from any period prior to the early seventeenth century, except ancient deeds and some Gascoigne pedigrees which remain at Wentworth Woodhouse.

There is naturally much correspondence with the king's ministers, Laud, Cottington, Portland and Secretary Coke, and, at the other end of the scale, many letters full of detail relating to the management of his estates and local affairs.

The bulk of the correspondence here, however, consists of letters addressed to him by a vast number of his contemporaries and relating to topics from America to India; of these the writers' names only are indexed.

Of particular interest are the papers concerning working class agitation from 1794 to 1819, ending with the Earl's dismissal from the Lord Lieutenancy of the West Riding at the time of Peterloo.

The stewards' correspondence includes letters from John Carr the architect and there are a number of his original plans for many features in Wentworth House and Park.

As with virtually all the great South Yorkshire families, collieries played an important part and are well represented in the Fitzwilliam muniments, up to and including the extensive opencast working on the estate during the last thirty years.

A much more extensive group of letters forms basically the correspondence of the first Baroness Wharncliffe and her family, including her mother Lady Erne and her grandfather the 4th Earl of Bristol and spanning the years 1773 to 1845.

The correspondence of H. J. Wilson's aunt, Mrs Mary Anne Rawson, takes the family record back to the anti-slavery period, a topic in which she was much interested.

His correspondents included a number of lesser literary figures of his period (examples are William Roscoe, William Carey, Dr John Aikin, Barbara Hofland, Mrs Basil Montagu) and evangelical Christians on both sides of the Atlantic; his correspondence with Joseph Aston includes the period of Montgomery's trial and imprisonment in 1794.

Many of the city's major industrial concerns have deposited their archives at Sheffield, notably: The firm of Thomas Bradbury and Sons, silver platers, is represented by day books, ledgers, orders, correspondence, etc., going back to the 1780s.

The ledgers give detailed information of many aspects of the iron trade and were unknown to Dr A. Raistrick when he wrote 'The South Yorkshire ironmasters, 1690-1750' (Economic History Review, 1939).

The business of an eighteenth-century hardware (cutlery) merchant is represented by stock and account books of Walter Oborne of Sheffield and subsequently of Ravenfield.

Cutlery manufacturing firms, mainly of the nineteenth century, are represented by small deposits of Thomas Nowill & Co., Christopher Johnson & Co., and Ibbotson Bros., and by some orders and correspondence of Joseph Rodgers & Sons rescued from destruction in the 1930s.

From Thurlstone, bordering on the textile district, have come records of a peculiar trade, the making of hair-cloth and bagging for oil presses, from about 1790-1820s; this archive contains a series of letters from an emigrant to Pittsburg, written to his relatives in Yorkshire.

The Fairbank collection, mentioned earlier, containing the firm's draft maps and plans, and their field and survey books, covers the parish of Sheffield and many adjacent areas.

As surveyors for local enclosures and turnpike roads, as well as for many private clients, they mapped manors, estates, street developments, single properties and even some collieries.

Records have been deposited by a variety of different bodies such as political parties, trades unions, clubs, societies, charities, trusts and independent schools.

The letters, diaries and personal papers of many individuals from all walks of life have been deposited, including those as diverse as Edward Carpenter, Mrs Gatty and David Blunkett MP.