This year marks the 150th anniversary of the inaugural FA Cup competition, first won by the now extinct Wanderers FC. It may come as a surprise that amongst our varied collections there can be found a record or two relating …
Eighty years have passed since the soothing sound of By the Sleeping Lagoon was first heard across our airwaves as the theme tune to the debut episode of BBC Radio Four’s Desert Island Discs. A multitude of MPs and Peers …
On 18 November 1910 over 300 suffragettes marched to Parliament Square led by Emmeline Pankhurst, one of the founders of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). This protest march was in response to Prime Minister Asquith not allowing the …
Does the name Spencer Perceval ring a bell? Perhaps you remember it from Horrible Histories or an episode of Eggheads. Perceval was shot dead in the House of Commons lobby, the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated. This …
The writer F Scott Fitzgerald memorably once said that ‘There are no second acts in American life’. Thankfully Christopher Chataway was British and didn’t adhere one iota to that maxim. Mirroring the standard structure of a theatrical play his …
‘We all have a book in us’ as the saying goes. There are some long-forgotten manuscripts in our collections written by various individuals that unfortunately never had the glory of going to print. A red-ribboned bundle titled In the House …
Content warning: This article contains historic language some may find offensive. The language has been included in the blog to accurately reflect the content of the records. Today, the county of Lancashire is associated with hotpot, Blackpool Tower Ballroom, and the …
This blog explores several petitions from early 1621 which tell the story of accusations, evading arrest warrants, eventual arrests, and imprisonment in the infamous Fleet Prison. The two main characters of this tale are Jeffrey Passmore, a wax chandler, otherwise …
What is… Longer than the length of three football fields? 200 years old? And made of animal skin? It's the Longest Act! To give it its proper title, it's the Land Tax Commissioners' Act 1821, which at 348 metres is …
An influx of rookie MPs entered the House of Commons after the post-war 1945 General Election. One of the new intakes was the celebrated playwright, Benn Levy who’d won the Eton & Slough seat for the victorious Labour Party. …
