UK Parliamentary Archives

Today we say a heartfelt goodbye to the Victoria Tower — home of the Parliamentary Archives of over 80 years.

This iconic space has safeguarded around 3 million records, including some of the most important constitutional documents in the United Kingdom’s history.

As our collections are carefully moved to The National Archives we’re excited that these treasures will now be even more accessible to the public and future generations.

A huge thank you to all the incredible colleagues who have contributed to the work of the Archives over the decades and thank you all for engaging with our content.

Our new social channels will be launching shortly and will focus on the collections in the rest of the Palace.

Updates to follow soon!

Maurice Bond was the Clerk of the Records from 1946 to 1981 and is pictured here with our rolled original Acts of Parliament in December 1961. The Victoria Repository was officially re-opened in July 1963, here is an invention for the grand opening of the new repository.

We continue our theme of ‘Surviving Disasters’ with the bombing of Parliament during World War Two. Most of the records were safe and had already been evacuated, but the House of Commons Chamber had been destroyed. Here is a photograph of Churchill surveying the damage.

After the 1834 parliamentary fire, everything apart from Westminster Hall was rebuilt. Designers Pugin and Barry redesigned everything, including Victoria Tower as a purpose-built record repository. Here is a design by Pugin from 1836 of the now iconic clock tower.

During the 1834 parliament fire, caused by the burning of tally sticks, the Lords collections survived the disaster. People were even throwing records out of the burning building! Commons records were mostly lost, but some survived, although not without a little charring!

The theme for the final week of our archives' Greatest Hits is ‘Surviving Disasters’. The first record is from the original manuscript House of Commons Journal in 1605. Recorded in the margins is the discovery of the 26 barrels of gunpowder planted by Guy Fawkes.

This is a piece of dual parliamentary history, it is a replica stained glass window depicting Simon de Montfort, who called the first parliament in 1265. This replica was used in a past parliamentary exhibition from 1965 to mark the 700th anniversary. This year marks 760 years!

This Women's Freedom League banner was unfurled from the Ladies Gallery of the House of Commons Chamber in October 1908 during a protest for women’s suffrage.

Find out more about this record's history and the protest on our blog https://ow.ly/7k7G50W79lo

Another of our archives ‘Greatest Hits’ is this 1806 petition from the men and women of Manchester. It was in support of the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill and has over 2,000 signatures. The document is comprised of 9 sheets of parchment and is over 5 metres long.

The Protestation Returns are the closest record we have to a census from 1642. All adult men had to swear an oath of loyalty, their names were then recorded by parish. William Townley listed in the Burnley was ahead of his time listed as ‘Working from Home’.
Find out more on our blog https://ow.ly/xTao50W53LR

This month is the 380th anniversary of the Battle of Naseby which took place on 14 June 1645. A series of Charles I’s coded letters were left behind at the battle and are now known as the Naseby Letters. This letter is from Charles to his nephew Prince Maurice in 1644.
https://ow.ly/476L50W53Iy

Finishing off our week of historic royal records with this photograph of Queen Victoria and her youngest child Princess Beatrice. The tower that is the current home of the Parliamentary Archives was renamed from the King’s Tower to Victoria Tower for her Diamond Jubilee in 1987.