Craven Community Projects Group (CCPG) is pleased to announce that a final piece of vital work on the website is now being completed thanks to a generous Grassroots Grant from the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust. This research work is entitled The Craven Pioneer Project.

It is a project that developed out of work and research on www.cpgw.org.uk - a task that became a significantly bigger endeavour than the group ever envisaged. 

CCPG has two rare reels of microfilm from the British Library at Colindale of the West Yorkshire Pioneer (1917 & 1918) and our volunteers are working to identify, transcribe and transfer any historical and personal articles from these films that relate to any of the ‘missing’ men and women from Craven who died in the Great War - (please see our major update article November 2007).

The first Skipton newspaper was the Craven Weekly Pioneer and General Advertiser for West Yorkshire and East Lancashire which was started around 1865 and continued until 1871 when it became the Craven Pioneer. In 1884 it became known as the West Yorkshire Pioneer and East Lancashire News and in 1934 it was finally named the West Yorkshire Pioneer. Meanwhile a rival, The Craven Herald, appeared in 1875 becoming the Craven Herald and Wensleydale Standard in 1878 and then later, in 1922, it became known as the Craven Herald again. In the early 1930s the Craven Times made a very brief appearance (Colindale Library lists only a single edition). In 1937 the West Yorkshire Pioneer merged with the Craven Herald to become the newspaper which still serves the community today. 

To date we have located and transcribed 1,018 articles from the West Yorkshire Pioneer (1914 – 16) and 4,842 articles from the Craven Herald, however, we believe there are still many articles from 1917-18 and these need to be found in order to offer people a comprehensive and complete database on www.cpgw.org.uk 

At the moment no library in Craven or Yorkshire holds these microfilms and therefore it would be extremely difficult for existing family and/or local historians to trace this information – people would have to visit the British Library and pay to download the information. 

At the end of the project, the group will donate the missing microfilms - in perpetuity - to Skipton Library for the whole community to enjoy. 

Volunteers are also completing their work on a collection of personal memorabilia – items that have been donated by existing relatives over the past two years and these will also be uploaded on to the site and include: photographs, diary extracts, medals, letters, army records and historical documents.

Grassroots Grants are being delivered in North Yorkshire by the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust in partnership with York & North Yorkshire Community Foundation.  The purpose of this grants programme is to support small informal voluntary and community groups and organisations, many of whom are dependent on volunteers

Grassroots Grants are supported by the Office of the Third Sector, the Community Development Foundation, Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust and York & North Yorkshire Community Foundation.

For further information please visit www.ydmt.org