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Bishopsgate Library , now known as Bishopgate Institute's Special Collections and Archives is an independent, charity-funded library located within the Bishopsgate Institute in the City of London.
Bishopsgate Institute Special Collections and Archives | |
---|---|
Location | London, UK |
Collection | |
Items collected | Books, pamphlets, newspapers, artefacts, items |
Size | 150,000 books plus additional collections |
Access and use | |
Access requirements | Free - registration required on first visit, open to all |
Website | https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/archives/ |
The library's particular strengths include printed and archive material on London, freethought and the labour movement, developed by Charles Goss, librarian from 1897 to 1941. The London Collection includes books, directories, maps and visual material relating especially to the East End of London.
The George Howell Collection is an important library of books and pamphlets covering many of the political and economic issues of the late 19th century, including early trade union reports. Howell's own correspondence and papers form part of this collection. The library also holds the archives of the London Co-operative Society.
Archives of other individuals include George Jacob Holyoake (1817–1906), secularist and early Co-operative Movement activist; Charles Bradlaugh (1833–1891), politician and founder of the National Secular Society; and the cultural historian and local resident Raphael Samuel (1934–1996).
The archive at the Bishopsgate Library holds over 20,000 images in three collections: The LAMAS Glass Slide Collection, the London Co-operative Society and the London Collection Digital Photographs. They have recently shared some of their images from London & Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS) in 1977 on Historypin. This collection contains images of many of London's landmarks including churches, statues, open spaces and buildings, as well as images showing social and cultural scenes from the early 20th century. [1]
The library hosts the Great Diary Project, founded by Dr Irving Finkel, which by September 2021 had collected more than 15,000 unpublished diaries. [2] [3]
Bishopsgate Library holds collections relating to the social and cultural history of London. These include the archive collections of individuals, such as historian Raphael Samuel, police officer Frederick Wensley or Lord Mayor Sir Ralph Perring, and organisations, such as the London History Workshop or the Eton Manor Boys' Club.
The library also holds a collection of around 50,000 books, pamphlets, illustrations, photographs and maps covering the social and cultural history of London, with particular reference to Bishopsgate and Spitalfields. The London Collection also holds an extensive collection of press cuttings concerning the area around the Institute dating from 1740 and one of the country's finest collections of London guidebooks and trade directories.
Information on the institute's own history is detailed within the Bishopsgate Institute archive, along with the archives of prominent individuals connected to the organisation, including social reformer William Rogers (1819-1896), librarian Charles Goss and architect Charles Harrison Townsend.
The library has recently developed to become Britain's largest LGBTQIA+ archive. Holding more than 12,000 titles and a pamphlet collection of over 3,500 festival programmes, event leaflets and campaign material. [4] [5] Notable parts of the collection include extensive erotica, the Rebel Dykes archive project, the UK Leather and Fetish Archives and the Museum of Transology. [4] [5] Since 2011 the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive (LAGNA), part of the Hall–Carpenter Archives has been based at Bishopsgate. [6] The library hosts outreach events, [7] encourages donations of people's LGBTQIA+ artefacts [8] and host open days showcasing collections. [9] In March 2022 the Bishopsgate Institute showcased many artefacts from the collection at the Barbican Centre gallery The Curve in an exhibition called Out and About!. [7]
Bishopsgate Library's collections on labour and socialist history include the archives of politicians and activists such as Jack Gaster, Noreen Branson, Aubrey Bowman and Bernie Grant, as well as organisations such as the Evening Standard Outside Chapel and the National Miners' Support Network.
The Labour and Socialist History collections also include the library and archive of politician and trade unionist George Howell (1833–1910).
The archives have held inspiration for many, including architect Sumayya Vally whose 2021 Serpentine Pavilion was inspired by her time at the Bishopsgate looking at their archives of collective activist history. [10]
Bishopsgate Library holds the most unusual collection of archives and printed materials relating to the history of freethought and humanism in the UK. This includes the archives and libraries of two of the Victorian era's most prominent thinkers on freethought and secularism, Charles Bradlaugh and George Jacob Holyoake.
The library also documents the history, activities and campaigns of the movement from the late 19th century to the present day through the extensive archives of the British Humanist Association, Rationalist Association and the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association.
Bishopsgate Library has extensive collections documenting the history and activities of the co-operative movement in London, Essex and the South East, including the archives of individual activists such as Robert Leckie Marshall (1913-2008) and Caroline Ganley, and organisations such as the London Co-operative Society and the Women's Co-operative Guild.
The Co-operative Movement Collection includes a wide range of books, pamphlets, reports and journals concerning the history of the movement, alongside material produced by a wide variety of organisations, such as the Co-operative Party, International Co-operative Alliance and Women's Co-operative Guild.
Collections relating to the history of protest and campaigning includes the archives of individual activists such as Mavis Middleton and Peter Hunot, and organisations such as the Stop the War Coalition, Freedom Press and Republic.
The Library's archives and printed material also cover a wide variety of topics including republicanism, pacifism, the anti-nuclear movement, colonial freedom movements, anarchism, animal rights and conscientious objection.
The library has served as a filming location, with scenes from My Policeman filmed there. [11]
Martha Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield, was an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer. It was Webb who coined the term "collective bargaining". She was among the founders of the London School of Economics and played a crucial role in forming the Fabian Society.
Annie Besant was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights and Home Rule activist, educationist, and campaigner for Indian nationalism.
Charles Bradlaugh was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851.
The People's History Museum in Manchester, England, is the UK's national centre for the collection, conservation, interpretation and study of material relating to the history of working people in the UK. It is located in a grade II-listed, former hydraulic pumping station on the corner of the Bridge Street and Water Street designed by Manchester Corporation City Architect, Henry Price.
George Jacob Holyoake was an English secularist, co-operator and newspaper editor. He coined the terms secularism in 1851 and "jingoism" in 1878. He edited a secularist paper, the Reasoner, from 1846 to June 1861, and a co-operative one, The English Leader, in 1864–1867.
George William Foote was an English secularist, freethinker, republican, writer and journal editor.
Bishopsgate Institute is a cultural institute in the Bishopsgate Without area of the City of London, located near Liverpool Street station and Spitalfields market. The institute was established in 1895. It offers a cultural events programme, courses for adults, historic library and archive collections and community programme.
The Kate Sharpley Library is a library dedicated to anarchist texts and history. Started in 1979 and reorganized in 1991, it currently holds around ten thousand English language volumes, pamphlets and periodicals.
The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collection on British industrial relations, as well as archives relating to many other aspects of British social, political and economic history.
George Howell was an English trade unionist and reform campaigner and a Lib-Lab politician, who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1895.
The Tamiment Library is a research library at New York University that documents radical and left history, with strengths in the histories of communism, socialism, anarchism, the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement, and utopian experiments. The Robert F. Wagner Archives, which is also housed in Bobst Library at NYU, documents American labor history. Together the two units form an important center for scholarly research on labor and the left.
The Hall–Carpenter Archives (HCA), founded in 1982, are the largest source for the study of gay activism in Britain, following the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957. The archives are named after the authors Marguerite Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943) and Edward Carpenter (1844–1929). They are housed at the London School of Economics, at Bishopsgate Library –, and in the British Library.
The Working Class Movement Library (WCML) is a collection of English language books, periodicals, pamphlets, archives and artefacts, relating to the development of the political and cultural institutions of the working class created by the Industrial Revolution, in Salford, Greater Manchester, England.
The Australian Queer Archives (AQuA) is a community-based non-profit organisation committed to the collection, preservation and celebration of material reflecting the lives and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex LGBTI Australians. It is located in Melbourne. The Archives was established as an initiative of the 4th National Homosexual Conference, Sydney, August 1978, drawing on the previous work of founding President Graham Carbery. Since its establishment the collection has grown to over 200,000 items, constituting the largest and most significant collection of material relating to LGBT Australians and the largest collection of LGBT material in Australia, and the most prominent research centre for gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and intersex history in Australia.
The Feminist Library was founded as the Women's Research and Resources Centre in 1975 by a group of women concerned about the future of the Fawcett Library to ensure that the history of the women's liberation movement survived. The founders included feminist academics like Diana Leonard and Leonore Davidoff.
Historypin is a digital, user-generated archive of historical photos, videos, audio recordings and personal recollections. Users are able to use the location and date of their content to "pin" it to Google Maps. Where Google Street View is available, users can overlay historical photographs and compare it with the contemporary location.
The National Co-operative Archive, located in Holyoake House, Manchester, UK, is home to collections relating to the history of the co-operative movement, that provide an unrivaled resource for the understanding of the co-operative movement from its initial ideas of the nineteenth century to the present day. The archive includes manuscripts, rare books, periodicals, films, photographs and oral histories. The archive is run by the Co-operative Heritage Trust, who also operate the Rochdale Pioneers Museum.
Charles William Frederick Goss (1864–1946) was an English librarian, polemicist and cataloguing innovator. He worked in English public libraries at the turn of, and the early, twentieth century, and was prominent among opponents of open access libraries in the UK.
Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner was a British peace activist, author, atheist and freethinker, and the daughter of Charles Bradlaugh.
The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was an agricultural association in Ireland which advocated, and helped to organise, agricultural cooperativism, including mutual credit facilities. From its establishment by Sir Horace Plunkett in 1894, it quickly became an important element of the Irish economy and laid the foundations of the successful Irish dairy industry.