Stories from the collection

More than a thousand people who supported women’s right to vote were arrested for their activism. This document records them – and includes some famous names.

Is this the most famous anonymous letter in British history? Perhaps it should be. Without it, the Gunpowder Plot might have succeeded.

A handwritten letter written by sewing machinists working at Dagenham car plant who famously went on strike for equal wages in the late 1960s.

On the Windrush passenger list, white socialite Nancy Cunard (1896–1965) is described as a 'writer', but she was also a staunch activist for Black civil rights.

The police raid on a secret queer nightclub in 1933 gives an insight into the lives of gay men in interwar London and their defiance in the face of persecution.

Margaret Bondfield (1873–1953) was a trade unionist and Labour politician. In 1929 she became Britain’s first female cabinet minister.

Passenger lists for the ships that carried post-war migrants from the Caribbean to Britain can be crucial resources for people tracing their family history.

Was a woman arrested for murder in Victorian Liverpool an unfortunate person caught up in a series of ill-fated events, or something much more sinister?

Through documents held at The National Archives, we can piece together a great deal about the life and reign one of Britain's most infamous medieval monarchs.

Insaaf was a film made by the government, filmed partly in Urdu, to promote employment rights under the 1968 Race Relations Act.

Maud Allan (1873–1956) was a celebrated West End dancer in the early 20th century until she became entangled in one of the most sensational trials of the 1920s.

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) was a tireless political activist, who led the WSPU – the militant faction of the movement for women’s suffrage.