About
2009
Hi, I'm Liz Cook, I live in Devonport and launched this site during 2009 with the following goals:
- promote a greater awareness of Devonport's history and heritage, & provide information for local historians and genealogists,
- encourage visitors to our waterfront, our parks and our listed buildings
- be comprehensive, covering all aspects of daily life in Devonport,
- encourage senior citizens to relive their memories
- encourage contributions, all communications from Devonport residents and businesses welcomed and invited.
2010
Phew!. I learned a lot in year one, mostly that it's a massive task for one person to maintain current information of an entire community, Devonport is a neighbourhood of a large city after all. I gave it a good try in year one, producing and uploading 115 pages, and now have over 1200 different persons logging on regularly each month. - but a large current affairs site is not sustainable on my input alone. In a community where some businesses stop trading, new ones start, people move in, others move out, and so on - one person cannot keep on top of such constant changes.
In order to stop this site become out-dated - as seen so frequently on other sites that are not maintained and updated, I decided to change focus - to convert Devonport Online to a history site.
During 2010, this entire site is being converted into two history sections. One section to be headed 'millennium Devonport'. It will contain all the contemporary material I've gathered and originally presented under the tabs 'Living, Working, Playing and Visiting'. This information will function as my snapshot of life in millennium devonport - recorded as I witnessed it, daily, weekly... The other section, 'Historic Devonport', contains (and there's much more to come) all my archives, material I've gathered, and some I've written myself, on Devonport's entire history.
History Dates
Although there will be two categories of history, in practise of course the dates overlap, depending which article you are reading, but the two categories are a useful and simple method of grouping the material. For me, a big difference between them is that I lived through one of them, so I write and present the material as an eye-witness to history, as a first-hand account of millennium Devonport. Material for the second category has been gathered anywhere I could grab it, the internet, PWDRO, newspaper archives, library books, and even from artifacts, which often tell their own stories about our history - see my magazine publication
Made in Devonport.
My opening sentence on the day this website was launched is still, and will always be, true - Devonport is ... one of the most historic neighourhoods in Plymouth.
I can be contacted on
this email.