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From Strongroom to Your Screen: Digitising the Fortnightly Returns

Written by Jamie Orton, Digitisation Assistant

The (WDC) is our online exhibition website. It contains curated collections of our digitised material on topics such as the Spanish Civil War and the long‑running University newspaper, The Warwick Boar. Our most recent addition, the , provides a perfect example of how we transform physical archival material into an accessible digital collection.

In this post, I’ll be explaining how and why we digitise material to put on WDC and also explaining more about the fascinating collection that is the Fortnightly Returns.

The Fortnightly Returns

First published in 1834, the Fortnightly Returns was the official newspaper of the Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons of England, Ireland and Wales (1833–1921). The society itself was founded in 1833 and was a trade union representing workers involved in stonemasonry and related trades.

The Fortnightly Returns served as the union’s main channel of communication between its central leadership and its members across the country. Its pages include:

• Recruitment
• Industrial disputes and negotiations with employers
• Trade union administration
• Welfare and activities of individual members
• Major building projects
• Reports of accidents, injuries, and deaths

The Fortnightly Returns remained in publication until 1910, when it was replaced by the Journal of the Operative Stone Masons Society. That journal continued until 1921, the same year the union merged with other builders’ unions to form the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers. In 1971 another merger created the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, Painters and Builders. As of 2017, due to yet another merger, it is now part of Unite.

We decided to digitise this collection due to it being a rich historical source that would benefit from being made more easily accessible. Not only does it represent a significant source on craft unionism from the 1830s onwards, but it also contains a great deal of information on 19th‑century social and working‑class history. Within the material currently available online, readers will encounter references to the Chartist movement and coverage relating to major national projects such as the construction of the Houses of Parliament.

The collection is also an outstanding resource for family historians. The Fortnightly Returns contains the names of its members and includes a substantial number of obituaries. One of our archivists compiled a comprehensive index of these obituaries, which is available online: /services/library/mrc/collections/research_guides/family_history/stone/obituaries/

The Digitisation Process

Digitisation is the process of changing something physical, such as a document, into a digital form. In an archival context, this means creating digital copies of our material using the scanning equipment in our digitisation studio. The purpose of digitisation is twofold: first, it helps increase the visibility and accessibility of our collections. Secondly, by creating a digital surrogate, it helps to preserve the original document. If researchers are interested in looking at that particular document, we can show them the digitised version. This is especially useful for preserving damaged or fragile items.

At the MRC, digitisation is now a well‑established part of our work. What began years ago as a single flatbed scanner in the corner of the office has evolved into a fully equipped digitisation studio capable of digitising most of our collection, operated by two full‑time members of staff.

Digitisation is also a very time‑consuming process. A single volume of the Fortnightly Returns can easily take an entire day or longer. This is because we prioritise accuracy and consistency over speed. Our goal is to scan each item only once, producing high‑quality images that can serve both as a preservation copy and as the basis for online access. Going too fast or not handling the documents with proper care will result in preventable damage.

Once we have the digitised image, we can move on to the next phase: OCR (Optical Character Recognition). We achieve this using the software ABBYY FineReader. It analyses the scanned images and produces a text transcription, allowing users to search across the entire collection for names, places, and keywords.

For large, printed collections, OCR is the only practical way to generate transcripts. Spanning over 75 years with 2,000 issues, it would be impractical for us to create transcripts manually. They are a necessity for these digital collections, as it would be incredibly difficult to search them otherwise. The transcripts themselves are very good; while ABBYY FineReader cannot interpret handwriting, it performs well with printed black text on white paper, making it very effective for the Fortnightly Returns.

The final phase is to add the digitised material to WDC. This involves uploading the scanned images along with the OCR transcripts and then inputting the relevant metadata. Metadata ensures the collection is structured, searchable, and easy to navigate. Once complete, the material becomes available for the public to explore.

I hope you enjoy exploring the Fortnightly Returns—and that this glimpse behind the scenes offers a better understanding of the care and effort involved in bringing our collections from the strongroom to your screen.

21 July 2026