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The Reside Collection forms the nucleus of the local history archive at Newry and Mourne Museum and is the product of the professional lives of Samuel Wilson Reside and Major Gerald Reside who were architects and engineers in Newry and Margaret Reside, who was a solicitor.
There are around 12,000 documents in the Collection dating from 1708 to the 1990s, which are wide ranging and shed light on many aspects of local history in the Newry and Mourne area. The contents can be broadly divided into the following sections.
Estate Records
The papers include estate records such as rental books, titles deeds, maps and estate surveys. These relate to the Earls of Kilmorey, Marquises of Downshire, the Hall family of Narrow Water and the Ross family of Rostrevor. The Collection also contains some documents relating to the Fivey, Meade and Richardson estates and a number of smaller landowners. The Collection includes a set of maps of the estates of William Nedham around of the town of Newry dating from the late 18th century and rentals for the Earl of Kilmorey’s Newry estate covering the years of the Great Famine. Also included are a number of ink and watercolour maps relating to the Hall estate at Mullaghglass dating from 1835.
Encumbered Estate Records
In the years following the Great Famine, many large landed estates were burdened with debt. In 1849 the Encumbered Estates Court was established to sell off estates on behalf of landlords who could no longer afford to keep their land. Prior to the sale of the estate a detailed rental or catalogue of the estate was produced. The Collection includes many of these rentals from the locality and cover both urban and rural areas around Newry, Warrenpoint and Rostrevor (county Down) and also Omeath, Carlingford and Ballymascanlon (county Louth). These are invaluable for any researcher studying the area in the immediate aftermath of the Famine.
Architectural Plans and survey maps
The architectural plans in the Collection drawn by Samuel Wilson Reside and Major Gerald Reside range in date from the late 19th century to the 1980s. These relate to a broad range of architectural and engineering projects including private houses, schools, commercial and business practices including factories and industrial installations. There are a large number of hand drawn maps which were prepared for a variety of purposes including land conveyance, as evidence in legal cases and to illustrate engineering and architectural projects.
Land Purchase Commission Papers
The Land Commission was set up as a result of the Land Act of 1881 and was empowered to purchase estates from landlords and to transfer them into tenant ownership. Many of the Land Commission papers in the Reside Collection relate to the Northern Ireland Land Act of 1925 and most of these relate to land formerly owned by the Earls of Kilmorey, the Hall family at Narrow Water and the Richardsons at Bessbrook, county Armagh.
Legal papers
Papers from local legal cases are also an important element of the Collection. Of particular interest are papers relating to a legal case resulting from the Lady Cavan shipping disaster in Newry Port in 1937 and a celebrated case relating to the Fairy Glen, near Rostrevor in 1939. In both instances, these papers complement relevant material among the newspaper cuttings in the Collection.
Newspapers
As a reflection of Major Gerald Reside’s interest in local history, there are quite a substantial number of newspapers and newspaper cuttings in the Collection. Some of the cuttings are from late 19th century newspapers, but the bulk dates from the 1920s and 1930s. Of special interest are scrapbooks and folders containing cuttings from the local and national press which document the impact of the Troubles on the Newry area in the 1970s and 1980s.
Miscellaneous
The Reside Collection also contains a variety of ephemera and publications, most of which relates to local history and local events, including the Sir Trevor Corry Charity Book (1829) and a minute book relating to the Choir of the Newry Presbyterian Congregation (1821 – 1839).
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