Charitable Activity

FSG Charitable Grants Application Form 

Application Form

This form can be used to apply for the following types of support (guidance is embedded withing the form) 

1.     Non-Financial Support: FSG is more likely to be able to provide non-financial support but this can have a significant benefit for your project. For example; publication of your work by FSG, support from FSG in writing to officials, informal expert advice etc.

2.     Research, Translation, Publication Grant: A research grant might cover for example, support to travel to undertake research or other direct costs of research. A translation grant might cover the costs of translating a key source or a contribution to the translation costs of a publication of international interest not currently available in English. A publication grant might contribute to making publication of a non-commercial but valuable work feasible.

3.     Fortification Grant: Could cover work to research, investigate, sympathetically restore or present a fortification. See detailed guidance.

4.     Other: Any other grant which would contribute to the FSG purpose to ‘advance the education of the public in the study of all aspects of fortifications and their armaments, especially works constructed to mount or resist artillery'.

FSG has limited resources. Grants are expected to range from c£100 to £1500. We hope to award around 5 to 10 grants a year. Our decision will be based on the expected impact of the grant. We may give priority to new applicants. 

The current round of funding is £3000 from FSG and applications open on 01 November 2024 and close on 31 January 2025 after which applications will be assessed and award decisions made.

CHARITY WORK

The Fortress Study Group endeavours to try and help preserve military architecture and contribute to academic learning.  Although we have only limited funds (please consider making a donation) we endeavour to help in our own small way such as:

• Publishing fortification research in FORT and Casemate which are distributed to academic libraries worldwide.

• Grants to authors to help with their research and publications on subjects within our field of interest.

• Small grants to organisations preserving and interpreting fortifications. 

• Awards of plaques to fortification groups to acknowledge their good work in promoting and protecting a specific fort.

• Providing expert advice to development proposals.

The FSG Charitable Activities Sub-Committee is responsible for the groups charitable policy and activities.

Please contact the FSG Secretary for further information or to suggest a charitable activity. 

The following sections details some of our recent charitable activity. 

2024/25 Charitable Activity (To October 2024) 

Monitored the grant awards to:

• Slough Fort Preservation Trust - £800 to support the restoration of the west wing battery.
• Fort Le Bron - €1500 for an educational cut-away cannon display 
• Shoreham Fort - £1500 to create a WW2 educational experience

Launched the second round of grant awards. 

Joined the Civil War Educators Network and developed proposals for more education focussed activity including creating the roleof education officer. 

As before

• FORT and Casemate (provided free to various libraries and related societies)
• Website www.fortressstudygroup.org and relaunch of social media
• Webinar access for related societies
• Supported various enquiries from researchers
• Continuation of £10 student digital membership (13 members) 
• Continued to work with the Battlefields Trust to support the British Civil Wars Memorials Database 
• Consideration of establishing a digital archive for the Quarmby and other collections

2023/24 Charitable Activity 

• As before
  • FORT and Casemate (provided free to various libraries and related societies)
  • Website www.fortressstudygroup.org and social media ·
  • Webinar access for related societies
  • Supported various enquiries from researchers
• Growth of £10 student digital membership (15 members so far, 8 last year)
• Partnered with Battlefields Trust to support the British Civil Wars Memorials Database 
• Hosted the International Fortress Council at our conference in Chatham.
• Made further progress in digitising the Quarmby collection of postcards and records of visits to fortifications. It is apparent however that the scale of the work to catalogue this collection and make it more widely available is significant and we will be seeking volunteers from the wider membership.
• Developed a new FSG charitable grant application form and associated guidance.
  • Awarded the first three grants as follows
    • Slough Fort Preservation Trust - £800 to support the restoration of the west wing battery.
    • Fort Le Bron - €1500 for an educational cut-away cannon display 
    • Shoreham Fort - £1500 to create a WW2 educational experience

2022/23 Charitable Activity

• FORT and Casemate (provided free to various libraries and related societies) 
• Website www.fortressstudygroup.org and social media
• Webinar access for related societies
• Growth of £10 student digital membership (8 members so far, 3 last year)
• Supported various enquiries from researchers
• Collaborated with Battlefields Trust to run an ECW Symposium at which 1/3 of the 70+ attendees were members of neither society
• With the support of generous donations from two FSG members started the process of digitising the Quarmby Collection. We would welcome donations from members more generally including legacies.
• In preparation for a more proactive plan in 2022 developed policies for grants on publications, translation, fortifications, criteria for awards.

2021/22 FSG Charitable Activity

Recent Charitable Activity includes:

• Jan 22 FSG provide practical support to the recovery of the 9.2 inch gun and Mk V mounting from Levant Battery in Gibraltar.  
• Jan 22 The release of Fortifications of the Forth as a free e-book. The publication having been supported by an FSG grant in an earlier year.
• Dec 21 Appledore Civil War 'Fort' scheduled with FSG help

2020/21 FSG Charitable Activity 

• The following activity was reported at the Nov 21 AGM
  • FORT and Casemate (provided free to various libraries and related societies)
  • Website eg Fortress Gibraltar, Facebook, Twitter
  • Webinar access for related societies
  • International Fortress Council - FSG facilitated the October 2021 IFC committee meeting on Zoom
  • £10 student digital membership introduced (4 members so far)
  • Complementary membership for FORT authors
  • Various enquiries responded to eg information to PhD students (eg Italy Fortification Dictionary) and planning inquiries/ technical queries (eg Hurst Castle)
  • Distribution of Plaques (delayed by Coronavirus)