Posts by Roger Kershaw
-
Empire Windrush – 70 years on
Seventy years ago, on 21 June 1948, HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, near London, with 1,027 passengers on board; the vast majority were Commonwealth immi... read more
-
Opening up our prisoner of war collection
In December 2014, the Ministry of Defence transferred to The National Archives the series of records WO 416 consisting of an estimated 190,000 records of indivi... read more
-
Happy birthday to us!
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of The National Archives’ building (then the Public Record Office) at Kew by the then Lord Chancellor, Fr... read more
-
Volunteers at The National Archives: thank you!
We benefit from the dedication and commitment of our volunteers from across the world…... read more
-
My Tommy’s War: James Stanley Crossley
In 1911, 12 year old James Stanley Crossley enlisted as a boy soldier in the Territorial Force…... read more
-
Remembering the City of Benares tragedy
A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog on the torpedoing of passenger ship SS Arandora Star on 2 July 1940. Today, I turn my attention to a similar tragedy R... read more
-
Collar the lot! Britain’s policy of internment during the Second World War
Seventy-five years ago today on 2 July 1940, the SS Arandora Star, a British passenger ship of the Blue Star Line, was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic en rou... read more
-
150 years of the Welsh colony in Patagonia
This week, 150 years ago in 1865, a Welsh speaking colony called in Welsh ‘Y Wladfa’ (‘The Colony’), was established in the valley of th... read more
-
The Carlisle Experiment – limiting alcohol in wartime
One of the early casualties of the First World War was, in many respects, the community pub or, more accurately the liberal consumption of alcohol on licensed p... read more
-
Meeting the Grade
Recently, I put in an Freedom of Information (FOI) request to review a couple of closed records. Both documents were from the series HO 405: Aliens Personal Fil... read more