On the Record at The National Archives

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." That iconic Churchill line has framed our remembrance of the Battle of Britain for 80 years. But it's also been said that the few were supported by the many. In this episode, we've joined forces with the Royal Air Force and the Royal Air Force Museum to commemorate the few and the many by telling lesser-known stories fro...

To mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain we have joined forces with the Royal Air Force and the Royal Air Force Museum to share some lesser-known stories of Britain's great defence of our skies.

Refugee Week is an annual event that celebrates the contributions of refugees to Britain. Many refugee stories have found their way onto our repository shelves. In this special episode, we're sharing just a few of them. We're also going beyond the documents, as two of our records specialists interview their own parents about their refugee experiences and connect those stories to the documents we h...

To mark Refugee Week we are sharing just a few refugee stories from our vast collection. In a special episode we will also be going beyond the documents, as two of our records specialists interview their own parents about their refugee experiences.

In 1936, Edward VIII abdicated the throne of England to be with the woman he loved. It's widely considered to be one of the greatest love stories of the 20th century. But is it really? A century earlier, an elderly pauper named Daniel Rush and his wife faced a terrible choice: enter the workhouse and be separated after 49 years of marriage or try to survive without any income or family for support...

In 1588, Queen Elizabeth received a letter from her friend the Earl of Leicester just a few days before he died. She kept the letter by her bed for the next 15 years. In 1919, a Jamaican sailor named James Gillespie was forced to leave Cardiff after the Race Riots. Faced with the prospect of returning to Jamaica without his wife and child, he wrote to the Home Office, asking for help. These letter...

A love struck medieval clerk writing out romantic lyrics as he daydreams, a gay man in the 1930s who tears up a letter to his lover to hide it from the police, two women who defy 18th century conventions to marry in secret...these are some of the characters you'll meet in this episode, which features three stories of disappointed and forbidden love. Each story comes from a real love letter in The...

With Love. In our latest mini-series we're re-reading famous love letters preserved in our archives and reading between the lines of less obviously romantic records to discover the love-stories of everyday people from the last 500 years.

In 1965, Britain passed the Race Relations Act, which made it illegal to refuse service on the basis of race. To some, it looked like progress, while some anti-racist activists were critical. In this episode, we're going to examine two stories of Black people in 1960s and 70s Britain using the legal system to fight racism and discrimination. Lorne Horsford used the protections of the Race Relation...

The campaign for women's suffrage is often characterised by its militant factions and leaders like Emmeline Pankhurst who used bombs and destruction of property to get their message across. That characterisation is accurate, but it's not the whole story. In fact, militant suffrage actions didn't begin with the Women's Social and Political Union...or women at all. In this episode, we explore how a...

In 1990, a march in protest of the government's poll tax turned violent as police and marchers clashed. The Poll Tax Riots became one of the most infamous protests in recent British history. But this wasn't the first time protesters rioted and set fires in London to show their anger at a poll tax. In fact, 600 years earlier, the first mass uprising in English history was prompted by a very similar...

What would you do to change the status quo? In our newest three-part series we're sharing stories of protest. Using the records in our archive, we've pieced together stories of people fighting back against inequality and oppression that span 600 years.

The Cambridge Five are perhaps the most infamous spy ring of the 20th century. They worked their way into the upper ranks of British Intelligence in order to spy for the Soviets, betraying their country and causing the deaths of dozens of British agents. So why were none of them ever prosecuted? How did they get away with it? In this episode, we use the intelligence records in our archives to illu...

The exploits of T.E. Lawrence are legendary. Thanks to the famous film Lawrence of Arabia , millions around the world know about his time spying and fighting in the Middle East during the First World War...or at least they think they do. In this episode, we use the records in our collection to debunk the mythology around Lawrence. We also share the lesser known story of Gertrude Bell, another inte...

Right now, as you read this description, a spy is gathering intelligence, reading classified information, and hiding in plain sight. But what do spies actually look like? What do they do? What motivates them to enter such a secretive profession? In this episode, we use the documents in our collection and expert insight to go beyond the popular image of spies, explore the history of intelligence in...

History is everywhere in our popular culture. But the truth is harder to find. On the Record is a podcast by The National Archives that takes a closer look at the stories you think you know. At The National Archives, we are the guardians of more than 11 million historical government and public records spanning a thousand years of British history. These original documents hold incredible stories......