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Online resources

Page contents > Charles Booth | Exhibitions | Ionian Bank, Court of Directors' minute books | David Low cartoons | Malinowski photographs | Pamphlets | Posters | Further information

A number of documents from LSE Archives have been digitised and are available online (reference codes to the documents are in brackets):

Charles Booth

Information on working class living and working conditions was collected by Charles Booth and others for the 'Survey into Life and Labour in London', 1886-1903. The working papers relating to this survey are held at LSE Archives. Images of some of these documents are available on the Charles Booth Online Archive:

  • Twelve Maps Descriptive of London Poverty, 1898-9, covering an area of London from Hammersmith in the west, to Greenwich in the east, and from Hampstead in the north to Clapham in the south.
  • Police notebooks were compiled by social investigators while accompanying the police around their beats, 1897-1902 (BOOTH/B/346-376).
  • Stepney Union casebooks (BOOTH/B/162-168)
  • Jewish notebooks (BOOTH/A/19, BOOTH/B/108-109, BOOTH/B/197)
  • The Colony: seven volumes of a family journal that aimed to represent high-standards of social conscience and discussed issues such as universal suffrage and religion, 1866-1871. The originals are held at the Senate House Library (MS 797 II/24).

Exhibitions

1967 and all that. Exhibition created as part of the project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund marking the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which partially decriminalised homosexuality. Featuring documents from the Hall-Carpenter Archives and press cuttings from the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive, the exhibition puts the campaign for law reform in its historical context, charts the progress of reform proposals through parliament and illustrates the impact the change in law had on the gay rights movement.

'A poor thing, but our own': the Webbs and the Labour Party. Exhibition illustrating the links between Beatrice and Sidney Webb and the Labour Party, particularly from 1918 to 1931. During these years Sidney helped draft Labour's constitution, including 'Clause 4'; he was Labour MP for Seaham, 1922-29; and, he served in the first two Labour governments, 1924 and 1929-31.

Anthropology at LSE: the first 40 years. Exhibition illustrating the establishment and development of the Anthropology Department at LSE, from its beginnings as part of the LSE’s Sociology courses, to the consolidation of its reputation as a centre of excellence in the 1930s.

Beginnings: The history of education in Bloomsbury and Westminster. Exhibition created as part of the 2005 national Archive Awareness Campaign. The site includes a virtual exhibition on LSE's first 30 years using documents and images from LSE Archives. Items featured include an architect's drawing of the School's first building in the Houghton Street area, a painting of the coat of arms and a staff-student group photo from 1924. The LSE collections page on the website highlights treasures from LSE Archives, all chosen along the Archive Awareness Campaign theme of 'beginnings'. These include a woodcut image of a public beheading in the run-up to the English Civil Wars of the 1640s, James Mills' minutes of the first meeting of the Political Economy Club in 1821, and a letter marking the start of a friendship between two men in Edwardian England.

CND: The story of a peace movement. Exhibition of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament documents, created in 2008 as part of a project to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of CND. NEW: May 2008

One hundred years of Labour. Exhibition to mark the centenary of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1906. The LSE Archives part of the exhibition includes a letter from Emmeline Pankhurst to Keir Hardie about campaigning in Merthyr Tydfil, Sidney Webb photographed during the 1931 political crisis and Barbara Castle's campaigning literature from the 1945 General Election.

Ionian Bank, Court of Directors' minute books

The Court of Directors of the Ionian Bank were responsible for the formulation and development of bank policy and strategy. The minutes (reference IONIAN BANK/3/1-12) record resolutions on matters such as the appointment of directors and managers, the opening of new branches and agencies, and changes in the administrative structure of the bank. For further details and links to the images see Ionian bank: Court of Directors' minute books, 1839-1917

David Low cartoons

LSE Archives holds a set of cartoons by Sir David Low, 1891-1963. These have been digitised and are available online via the website of the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature.

Malinowski photographs

Among the papers of anthropologist Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski, 1884-1942, are 1,000 photographs taken during his fieldwork on the Trobriand Islands between 1915 and 1918. The images provide a vivid insight into the lives of the islanders and include fishing, dances, village life and agriculture. All the photographs are available online via the Archives Catalogue (reference MALINOWSKI/3).

Pamphlets

Over 600 pamphlets have been digitised as part of a project by the Higher Education Digitisation Service based at the University of Hertfordshire, and funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). These are all available online as pdf files (to view them you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. This software is already installed on many computers. However, if you do not have it, you may download it for free from the Adobe website.)

Many of our older social policy and transport pamphlets are available online. For further details and links to these pamphlets see the following guides:

In addition, many other pamphlets are also available online (via their library record on the Library catalogue):

  • BP160336-BP160412. Pamphlets on 19th century British political history, including some political cartoons.
  • BP161320-BP161372. Includes pamphlets on transport, Society of Friends, Anti-Corn Law League, Robert Owen and the early trades union movement.
  • BP165776-BP165835, some gaps. Pamphlets by 19th century English socialists.
  • BP203110-BP204645. Includes pamphlets on women's suffrage, India and public health.

These date from the 18th century onwards - one of the earliest being 'Proposals for imploying [sic] the poor in and about the city of London, without any charge to the publick' by Daniel Defoe, 1713 (HV/644). There are many other famous authors in the collection, including Annie Besant, Edmund Burke, Charles James Fox, W E Gladstone, H M Hyndman, William Lovett, John Stuart Mill, William Morris, David Owen and Beatrice Webb.

 One method of finding a complete list of the online pamphlets on the Library catalogue is:

  • set search limits to LSE Archives (under Collection)
  • search for: www

Posters

A number of collections of posters have been digitised and are available online via the Archives catalogue:

Coll Misc 0519: Political and Tariff Reform Posters, c1892-1910. Over 90 posters by political parties and organisations. Main themes include the Second Boer War (1899-1902), Tariff Reform, Irish Home Rule and Immigration.

Coll Misc 0660: British Labour Delegation to Russia, 1920 (13 posters collected by the delegation).

Coll Misc 0719: Russian Child Care posters, 1930 (16 posters).

Coll Misc 0840: London County Council Election 1907 (22 posters).

Further information

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