The day parliament burned down
Find out about one of the most seminal events of the 19th century, which not only changed the face of London, but also led to the creation of The National Archives itself. In the early evening of 16...
View ArticleHidden treasures? Uncovering maps among the files of government.
The National Archives holds over six million maps and plans and the majority are among files, boxes, volumes and rolls. Map specialist Andrew Janes explores the variety of these ‘hidden’ maps and...
View ArticlePublic Cooperation with the Household Expenditure Enquiry, 1953-1954
The Household Expenditure Enquiry of 1953-54 was the first large-scale enquiry into household expenditure and income in the United Kingdom since the Family Budget Enquiry of 1937-1938. It was intended...
View ArticleBig Ideas: The Great Archive Debate: a view from York
At the end of the last century the great heritage debate transformed thinking about public engagement with the past in historic sites and museums. Do new initiatives in archives promise something...
View ArticleWriter of the month: Human woes – researching violence and pain in the archives
Joanna Bourke discusses her book What it Means to be Human: Reflections from 1791 to the Present and how she uses original records in her writing. Joanna Bourke is Professor of History at Birkbeck...
View ArticleBig Ideas Series: Artistic Practice and the Archive
In this seminar, Professor Andrew Prescott explores the ways in which artistic practice can help us re-imagine the archive and the contents of the collections they hold. Drawing on the work of...
View ArticleDigital Archives of the Future
To mark forty years since The National Archives moved to Kew, our digital director John Sheridan discusses the challenges that archives will face in the future. John is currently leading efforts to...
View ArticleBig Ideas Series: The role of archives in addressing refugee crises
This presentation provides an overview of a project called ‘Records and ICT at the Boundaries of the State: Refugee Needs, Rights and Uses’ which looks at the ways in which archivists in affected...
View ArticleBig Ideas Series: Entity disambiguation in digital cultural heritage
To enable people to explore a digital collection, the platform that hosts that collection needs to have a comprehensive understanding of the information it is presenting. However, the level and quality...
View ArticleDigitally reconstructing Ireland’s lost archive
On 30 June 1922 the Public Record Office of Ireland was destroyed by fire in the opening engagement of the Irish Civil War. Historians have long considered the 700 years of records that the building...
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