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Posts by Chris Day

Originally from sunny Buckingham , I studied for a BA in English & History at De Montfort University, Leicester, before moving to London to complete an MA in Contemporary History & Politics at Birkbeck College. After my studies I worked as an exams administrator, but was lucky enough to be offered the position as an Opening Up Archives Trainee at London Metropolitan Archives. I work in the Development team at LMA, helping to make its collections more accessible through schools, community outreach and informal adult learning programmes. The traineeship has not only allowed me to increase my knowledge of the workings of the archives sector, further building on a passion I gained whilst researching for my studies, but also allows me to work with the collections creatively, trying to draw out narratives from the material and get people engaged with history. It’s fantastic.

5
Tue Mar
2013
3

Trainee Tuesday: Brave New Worlds

Posted by Chris Day in Behind the scenes, Records and research

LGBT History and Education at London Metropolitan Archives

This year’s LGBT History Month has been a special one for us at London Metropolitan Archives, marking the 10th year of our London Gay History Project, which culminated in our 10th LGBT History, Archives and Culture Conference, Brave New World? (already mentioned on The National Archives’ blog).

LMA’s London Gay History Project doesn’t just end with our conferences however. 2013 will see the launch of our LGBT History Education workshops, which allow young people to use documents from the LMA’s collections to explore themes in LGBT history.

With all of this in mind, I thought this blog would be a great opportunity to highlight and celebrate some of the LMA’s LGBT history sources…

Account of the trial for sodomy of Captain Edward Rigby

Account of the trial for sodomy of Captain Edward Rigby (LMA reference MJ/SP/1698/12/024)

As has been discussed on this blog before, one of the largest difficulties in researching LGBT history is that before the mid-20th century, the stories of people’s lives are often next to invisible, hidden away in the records of official bodies, using archaic language and usually lacking in detail. This makes researching LGBT history in archives quite a challenge (which is why The National Archives’ Discovery tags are such a good idea!), but I’ve been lucky enough at LMA to have most of the hard graft done already by our community archivist.

One of our most interesting early modern documents is the account of the trial for sodomy of Captain Edward Rigby, which took place in 1698 (LMA reference: MJ/SP/1698/12/024). It tells a fascinating story and paints an unusually vivid picture of homosexual life in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, further context for which I am indebted to historian Rictor Norton.

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6
Tue Nov
2012
1

Trainee Tuesday: Dare to Struggle! Dare to Win!

Posted by Chris Day in Records and research

Using archival resources to aid citizenship teaching

When I started at London Metropolitan Archives I thought I had a pretty good idea of the sort of collections it held. A copy of Magna Carta, a decree of William the Conqueror and another 100km or so of shelving containing the minutiae of London’s governance and trade for the last 1,000 years or so.

Once I arrived here and started browsing the catalogue though, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we didn’t just have the documents of London’s officialdom in our strong rooms, but also the documents of the long procession of London radicals and community groups that have fought for change against the prevailing orthodoxy. From Chartism to Suffragettes to Peter Tatchell, if someone’s been angry with the establishment in the capital, we invariably have some record of it.

Mumia Abu-Jamal protest

Mumia Abu-Jamal protest

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