ORCC was founded in 1920; a comprehensive account of its origins and early history can be found in its 50th anniversary publication: The Story of the Oxfordshire Rural Community Council 1920-1970 (see O41/1/PR1/13-14)
As the records in this collection reveal ORCC has become involved in a wide range of activities of importance to rural communities many of which formed the basis of later national developments and it has been instrumental in creating associations which have since become independant organisations, notably the Oxfordshire Association of Parish Councils (since 1973 referred to as Oxfordshire Association of Local Councils or OALC) and the Oxfordshire Playing Fields Association (OPFA); for a considerable period both of these organisations continued to be based in Hadow House (20 Beaumont Street, Oxford, ORCC's headquarters) and to share secretarial and administrative services with ORCC, hence their inclusion in this catalogue; all three organisations are still alive and thriving and their current activities can be viewed online at: www.oxonrcc.org.uk, www.oalc.org.uk & www.opfa.org.uk
The records consist primarily of minute books of the various committees of the three organisations, a large number of correspondence files and publicity material and memorabilia relating mostly to ORCC; as far as possible the records of the three organisations have been identified and structured under separate headings (sub-fonds); the correspondence files (until c 1978) were by far the largest group of surviving records and in some cases their contents were intermingled e.g. a file containing correspondence about the village hall could also contain parish council or playing field material; no attempt has been made to re-organise these records except to place their contents in a meaningful chronological order; as ORCC and its companion organisations were involved in an enormous range of activities and issues and to avoid unwieldy introductions detailed explanations are included in the file record to which they relate with brief summaries (where necessary) at series level
The records were transferred to the county archives service on a number of separate occasions and given the following accession numbers: 2689, 3760, 5506, 5910, 6207 & 6358
Catalogued by Christian E A Gilliam, Archivist, and completed in July 2015