Our Archives and Special Collections include the University's own historical records and rare books, personal archives, other organisation's historic records and special collections. These have either been created, purchased or donated to the University and its founding institutions.
The Archives and Special Collections team are professional archivists, librarians and specialists who make sure that these collections are available and accessible for everyone now and in the future.
Our collections are as varied as the University's current and past research interests. We are particularly strong in sources for researching performing arts, the social history of the East End of London and the history of higher education.
1000+ linear metres
archive collections on shelves
2ndcentury AD our oldest item
"Letter of Apia to Zoilos her brother" Oxyrhynchus Papyri no. 1581
The Archives and Special Collections are part of Library Services, which supports all knowledge creation and dissemination across the University.
Specific objectives are:
- To preserve and protect the Archive collections.
- To support the University's teaching and research programmes by affording appropriate access to the collections in the Archives.
- To transfer knowledge generated by the University to business and the community regionally, nationally, internationally by providing and promoting appropriate external access to the collections in the Archives, and as such support the University's dedication to the public good.
Using the archives
Archives are organised by creator, for example the People’s Palace charity created records that we grouped together as the People’s Palace Archive Collection. All but the most recently acquired collections will have at least a collection level description (also called “Fonds”) on our Archives Catalogue.
You can approach the Archives Catalogue by searching with keywords OR by starting with a collection you are interested in and browsing a list of what it contains (a catalogue). Archive catalogue descriptions are hierarchical. They start with general information that applies to a group of records (Fonds, series, sub-series) and get more specific as you dig down into the catalogue (file, item). Take a look at our FAQ "How can I find out what's in the Archives and Special Collections?" for a demonstration of how to browse by collection.
If you can’t see a catalogue with a collection it will be because it hasn’t been catalogued yet. Email us archives@qmul.ac.uk and we can give you any information about the collection created so far.
Searching tips:
- our catalogue is not as clever as some search engines, less is more and experiment with synonyms for keywords
- you can make sense of results by sorting them, if you choose by “Ref No” they appear grouped by collection
- you can use the star symbol "*" as a wildcard to expand searches to variations on keywords e.g. searching "garden*" would include records containing garden, gardens and gardening etc.
- archive records include a unique reference number shown in the “Ref No” field, keep a record of these and you will always be able to find a record again
More about University archives
The largest collection we care for is the University’s own records. These records have been divided into collections that include:
- Westfield College (1882-1989): catalogued
- People’s Palace (1882-1953): includes Technical Schools and East London College records 1887-1913, catalogued
- Queen Mary University of London (1913-): contact us for draft catalogues
We do not have:
- Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and records of our founding Medical Colleges: these are looked after by Barts Health Archives
- University of London records: these are looked after by Senate House Library
We have three historical timelines online which are starting points for any questions about University history: Westfield College 1881-1992, Queen Mary College (Incl. Mile End campus history) 1657-1991, Queen Mary University of London 1989-.
There are also a number of University history books available from Queen Mary’s Library Services including:
Castle Adamant in Hampstead: a history of Westfield College, 1882-1982 Janet Sondheimer, 1983
Queen Mary College: an adventure in education George Godwin, 1939
The making of Queen Mary, University of London Ruth Valentine, 2012
Using the Special Collections
Our Special Collections are collections of printed material that is unique or rarely held elsewhere. They are included in Library Search and appear alongside other library items when using this search tool.
Items from our Special Collections have the format “Rare Book” in the catalogue record (see the example below). To search our Special Collections specifically you can use our Library Search filtered by format "Rare Book".
The cataloguing of Queen Mary’s Rare Books collection is a work in progress so be aware not everything we hold is on the catalogue or listed in as much detail as we aim for. You can get in touch to ask us any questions about this archives@qmul.ac.uk.
