Stories from the collection

These handwritten pages offer a window onto a Prime Minister’s thinking about the issues of the day. In 1978, they ranged from education to the environment.

Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act negatively affected LGBTQ+ lives for decades. How did such a seismic piece of legislation come about?

This debated document officially ended the First World War and set out the terms and conditions for peace, and determined the course of the 20th century.

Described by the Birmingham Post as the ‘queen of Jamaican theatre’, Louise Bennett-Coverley (1919–2006) was a poet, performer, folklorist, writer and educator.

Nancy Wake (1912–2011), an agent for the Special Operations Executive, was the most wanted woman in France during the Second World War.

The Treason Act defined the crime of ‘high treason’ in law for the first time. It is one of the oldest pieces of legislation still on the statute book today.

Our collection includes many weird and wonderful records – one of the weirdest is undoubtedly a small box containing the remains of two long-dead rats.

This previously unknown set of records from an 18th-century galleon shines a light on one of history's most significant trade routes.

These photographs, captured through police investigations, give a unique insight into the heart of the early British Black Panther movement.

Copyright photographs of composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor provide us with a unique insight into his status in early 20th-century British society.

John Blanke was a trumpeter at the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. He is one of the earliest people of colour in England we have records about.

Robert Wedderburn (1762–1835) was a British-Jamaican radical preacher, abolitionist and writer.