Students and teachers can use our themed collections of original documents to develop their own questions and lines of historical enquiry.
Showing 48 resources
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19th century prison ships
What do these documents reveal about attitudes to crime and punishment?
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Attlee’s Britain 1945-1951
Planning for the future?
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Capturing our Collections
Artworks inspired by documents found in The National Archives
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Cats and mice
What tactics were used by suffragettes, police and government?
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Civil Rights in America
Follow the progress of the struggle through the archives
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Cold War on File
Why did the Cold War emerge?
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Commonwealth migration since 1945
What was the context and impact of migration in modern Britain?
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Early Modern witch trials
Who was accused?
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Elizabeth I’s monarchy
Rule of a ‘weak and feeble’ woman?
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English Reformation c1527-1590
How did state and people respond to religious change?
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Fifties Britain
Never so good? Or too good to be true?
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Georgian Britain
Age of modernity?
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Home Front 1939-1945 (part one)
How did Britain fight the war at home?
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Home Front 1939-1945 (part two)
How did Britain fight the war at home?
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Indian Independence
What led to Partition in 1947?
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Jacobite Rebellion of 1715
Rebels with a cause?
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Jacobite Rising of 1745
A serious threat to the Hanoverians?
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James I
What were the key areas of dispute?
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Kindertransport
Saving refugee children?
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Letters from the First World War, part one
How did these men experience the conflict? (1915)
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Letters from the First World War, part two
How did these men experience the conflict? (1916 - 18)
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Loyalty and dissent
How did Indian soldiers respond to the First World War?
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Magna Carta, 1215 and beyond
A medieval revolution?
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Medicine on the Western Front (part one)
How did trench warfare affect injuries and treatment?
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Medicine on the Western Front (part two)
How did trench warfare affect injuries and treatment?
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People – GCSE English Language
Using images for descriptive and narrative writing
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Protest and Democracy 1816 to 1818, part 1
Was this the start of mass politics in Britain?
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Protest and democracy 1818 to 1820, part 2
How close was Britain to revolution?
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Richard II
Were the troubles facing England in the 1370s and 1380s due to Richard II’s age and inexperience?
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Seafarers’ Stories
How can we tell the stories of the Mirpuri, Bengali and Panjabi seafarers who travelled to Britain in the 1920s-30s?
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Selling the Victorians
Victorians for sale! Has advertising changed from Victorian times?
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Significant Events
What happened then?
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Significant People
Who is who?
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Significant Places
What's in a place?
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Sixties Britain
A social and cultural revolution?
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Suffragettes on file
What did the struggle for the vote involve?
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Suffragettes: Outrage at Kew
What's the story?
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The Holocaust
Key documents from The National Archives
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Thirties Britain
The depressed decade?
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Twenties Britain (part one)
Decade of conflict, realignment and change?
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Twenties Britain (part two)
Decade of conflict, realignment and change?
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Victorian Industrial Towns
What made them unhealthy?
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Victorian lives
How was life different in Victorian times?
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Workhouse Voices
What did paupers say about the Poor Law?
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Workhouse Voices Creative Writing
Stories inspired by letters from the past