Why commission a history?

Everyone has a story to tell.  A published history is a tangible way of sharing the story of your school, business, church, community group or family with the wider community.  While you may want to mark a specific event or anniversary, a history will allow a clearer understanding of the role and culture of your organisation and assist in planning future directions.  By telling our histories, we also contribute to a shared knowledge and understanding of our communities.

Why employ a professional historian?

Professionally qualified historians bring a broad historical knowledge, strong research skills, an independent outlook and engaging writing skills to a history project.  The process of producing accurate, thorough but lively history is time-consuming and complex.  Members of the PHA are professionally accredited and able to identify and interpret research material, conduct oral history, and write an engaging manuscript that will locate your story in a wider historical context.  They will also oversee the production of an attractive end product that will facilitate the telling of your story. Remember that historians do more than simply write books.

What type of history?

History is not only books.  Commissioning organisations should carefully consider the approach that will best tell their story. This might be an oral history, a booklet, an audio-visual production, a CD-ROM, or a web page.  Once the most appropriate type of history has been decided, a project brief should be written to detail the timetable for the project, length of the history, method of presentation, archival resources and budget.  It may assist the outcome of the project if an archivist is appointed to organise existing documents and records.  It is also helpful to make initial approaches to publishers at this early stage, unless you plan to print and market the book internally.  Once a historian has been appointed, a contract should be drawn up to deal with all of these issues.  The PHA Employment Service can provide ongoing assistance with all aspects of commissioning a history.

What will a history cost?

A budget will need to cover the historian’s fee, a research allowance, costs of publication, reproduction of illustrative materials, indexing and marketing.

How do I find a historian?

The PHA offers a free service that regularly advertises history related work to a pool of professionally qualified and accredited historians.  This is an efficient way of locating an experienced historian for your project.  For more information please refer to the PHA Employment Service page on this site.

For information on preparing a Project Brief, see -