Education sessions and resources

Our taught sessions and online resources cover a variety of time periods and places. Many contain structured investigations for use directly in the classroom. Others are more suited for research and preparation. They all allow access into our unique collections.

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1833 Factory Act

Did it solve the problems of children in factories?
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1834 Poor Law

What did people think of the new Poor Law?
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1919 race riots

How significant a factor was race in the riots of 1919?
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19th century mining disaster

What happened at the Trimdon Grange Mining Disaster?
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19th century people

What can we tell from this photograph?
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19th century prison ships

What do these documents reveal about attitudes to crime and punishment?

20sStreets – Teacher’s Notes

What can archives reveal about people’s lives in the 1920s?
Session we teach

4099 is my name (SEND)

How can we share the experiences of someone who lived in the past?
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A ‘right’ to relief?

In what ways did paupers hold the Poor Law to account?

A Great Christmas Inconvenience

What can we learn from the documents about how some Victorians celebrated Christmas?

A Significant Person

Why is this person from the past remembered?

A suffragette and the census

What can you learn from our documents about a person who lived in the 1920s?
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A Victorian prison

Why were Victorian Prisons so tough?
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Adolf Hitler

Was Hitler a 'passionate lunatic'?
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African nurses

What part did they play in British health services?
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All on board!

What can we learn from old board games?
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All pals together

Would you like to meet our tommy, Henry Fairhurst?

All Work and No Play

What does this document reveal about work in the past?

Animals in the Archives

What jobs have animals done in times of war and peace?

Archaeology in the Archives

What kinds of documents can tell us about the work of archaeologists?

Archives Ahoy!

What can we learn about pirates from our collection?

Archives Live: Windrush 75

Special live event from The National Archives

Atlas of Illustrated Feelings

How are you feeling today?
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Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement

From Conflict to Peace - 25 Years On
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Belsen concentration camp 1945

What did the British find when they entered Belsen concentration camp?
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BGFA25 – Discussion Activity

From Conflict to Peace - 25 Years On
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Black Victorians

How much can documents reveal about the lives of Black people in Victorian Britain?
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Bound for Britain

Experiences of immigration to the UK
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British Response to V1 and V2

How did Britain respond to the threat of attack by missiles in 1943?
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Bulaya Chanda

What do these documents reveal about Bulaya Chanda, soldier and ‘showman’?
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Bussa’s rebellion

How and why did the enslaved Africans of Barbados rebel in 1816?

Case Study C – Wakefield

24 Thornes Lane

Case Study D – Wakefield

68 Thornes Lane Wharf

Case Study G – Falmouth

3 Lister Street

Case Study H – Falmouth

42 Lister Street
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Cats and mice

What tactics were used by suffragettes, police and government?

Census Detectives

What does the census reveal about families in the past?
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Chertsey

What was Chertsey like in the Middle Ages?
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Child migration

Why were children sent to Canada in 1869-1913?
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Children’s Clothing in the Workhouse

What do the letters tell us about pauper children's clothing in the workhouse?
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Choosing for the Archives (SEND)

How can we find out about someone from the past, using documents, images and objects?
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Christmas is cancelled!

What were Cromwell’s main political and religious aims for the Commonwealth 1650-1660?
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Civil rights and racial segregation

What was the response to racial segregation in the US?
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Civil Rights in America

Follow the progress of the struggle through the archives

Codes and Secret Messages

What do the documents reveal about codes and secret messages?
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Cold War

How concerned were the British in the early stages of the Cold War?
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Commonwealth migration since 1945

What was the context and impact of migration in modern Britain?
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Coronations: Ceremony and Change

How can we find out about Coronations in the past? How far have Coronations changed over time?

Creating an Imaginary Archive

What would you collect?
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Crime and Punishment: Robert Peel

How was law enforcement changed by Sir Robert Peel’s new Metropolitan Police Force?
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Criminal petitions

What do they reveal about the justice system?
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Crisis in the reign of Mary I

How far can Mary I’s reign be considered a time of crisis?

Curiosities

What is this curious object?

Dear Herbert

What can personal documents reveal about people’s lives?

Disaster at Sea

How can we find out about significant events in the past?
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Discover the Dissolution

How did the Dissolution change my local area?
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Domesday Book

What can we learn about England in the 11th century?
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Domesday Book: medieval treasure

What can we learn about people’s lives in 1086?
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Dr James Barry

Why was he significant in 19th century medicine?
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Eden’s last stand

Why did Anthony Eden resign in 1938?
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Edward the Confessor

What does the Domesday Abbreviato tells us about Edward the Confessor?
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Elizabethan propaganda

How did England try to show Spain planned to invade in 1588?
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Empire Windrush: Caribbean migration

Why did people from the Caribbean travel to live and work in Britain?
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Empire Windrush: Early Black Presence

What do the sources reveal about an early Black presence in Britain?
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Empire Windrush: Life for Migrants in the 1940s and 50s

What do these documents reveal about life for Caribbean migrants to Britain in the 1940s and 1950s?
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Empire Windrush: The Notting Hill Carnival

What do the sources reveal about the significance of the Notting Hill Carnival and why it began?
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English Reformation c1527-1590

How did state and people respond to religious change?
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Enquiring into Elizabeth

What can we learn about Elizabeth I’s ruling style from her letters and speeches?
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Evacuation to Shropshire

What happened to children who were sent away?
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Fifties Britain

Never so good? Or too good to be true?
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Food Glorious Food

What was food like for a child in the Victorian workhouse?
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Foundling Hospital

What were conditions like for children in the care of the Foundling Hospital?
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Four days’ hard labour

What was life like for a Victorian child criminal?
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Framlingham Castle

What was the primary function of Framlingham Castle in the ‘Middle Ages’?
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French Revolution

How did the British react to July 1789?
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From Outbreak to Archive: Tales of Public Health

What do the documents reveal about how government and society dealt with public health in the past?
Session we teach

From the Front

How typical was Albert Edwin Rippington’s experience of war?

Fun in the Files

What can our documents reveal about how people had fun in the past?
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General Haig

Butcher of the Somme or hero of Amiens?
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God blew and they were scattered

Did God really help the English defeat the Spanish Armada?
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Going to School in the Workhouse

How was school for pauper children different, and what was the same?
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Gordon Ford’s story

What was it like to be an airman in the Second World War?
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Government posters

How did Britain encourage people at home to help win the war?
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Great Escapes: Remarkable Second World War Captives

What can documents reveal about how people held captive ‘escaped’ during the Second World War?
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Gunpowder Plot

Can you uncover the plans of the plotters?
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Have we underestimated the Victorian Poor?

To what extent did the Victorian Poor accept their fate in the workhouse?
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Health and the Poor Law

To what degree did the Poor Law make an important contribution to Public Health?
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Henry VIII court rules

How did Henry VIII get up in the morning?
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Henry VIII: image of a king

Was appearance everything for a ruler in the 16th century?
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Henry’s royal rules (SEND)

What were the rules of daily life for a king in Tudor times?
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Hidden Love: LGBTQ+ lives in the 1920s and 1930s

What can our documents reveal about LGBTQ+ lives in the 1920 and 30s?
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Hitler assassination plan

How did the British plan to kill Hitler?

Holidays are Here!

What can our documents reveal about how families enjoyed summer holidays during the Second World War?
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Hong Kong and the Opium Wars

How did Hong Kong become part of the British Empire?
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How we were taught

What was school like 100 years ago?
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Huguenots in England

What was the experience of Huguenot migrants in seventeenth century England?
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Introduction to document research

What can archives reveal about the past and how history is constructed?
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Irish Partition

Why was Ireland divided in 1921?
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Jacobite propaganda

What was the point of Jacobite propaganda?
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Jews in England 1066

Why did Jews settle in England after 1066?
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Jews in England 1216-72

What was the relationship between Christians and Jews from 1216-72?
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Jews in England 1290

Why did Edward I expel the Jews in 1290?
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Jutland: Death at sea

Were lives wasted when the Indefatigable sank?
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Kenilworth Castle (part two)

What do the medieval records reveal?
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LGBTQ+ Rights in Britain

How have changes in laws and attitudes affected LGBTQ+ people in Britain?
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Life aboard the Titanic

Who travelled on the fateful maiden voyage?
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Life in 1950s Britain

What can we find out about life in 1950s Britain using documents from the time?
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Life in 1960s Britain

What can we find out about life in 1960s Britain using documents from the time?

Living under canvas

What can this document tell us about the experience of a group of refugee children?
Session we teach

Living under canvas: Child refugee stories

What can we learn from documents about the experiences of Basque child refugees?
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Loyalty and dissent

How did Indian soldiers respond to the First World War?
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Mangrove Nine protest

What does this reveal about police brutality and racism in '70s Britain?
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Mapping London

How and why does an area change over time?
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May Fourth Movement 1919

Why did the Paris Peace Conference lead to a mass protest movement in China?
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Medicine on the Western Front

How can we find out about medical treatment in the First World War?
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Medieval castles

What was their purpose and significance?
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Medieval seals

What can seals tell us about medieval times?
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Medieval Society

What roles did women play in Medieval times?
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Mental Health on Record

What do the documents reveal about the understanding of mental health in the past?
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Migrants to Britain

What can government documents reveal about the experience of Indian seafarers?
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Native North Americans

What was early contact like between English colonists and Native Americans?
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Partition of British India

What can The National Archives documents reveal about the partition of British India?
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Past pleasures

How did the Victorians have fun?

Propaganda

How can art be used to convey a message?
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Propaganda: the art of persuasion

How did the British government encourage people to support the war?
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Punishment in the workhouse – Lesson One

What can ‘pauper voices’ reveal about punishments for workhouse children?
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Punishment in the workhouse – Lesson Two

What can ‘pauper voices’ reveal about attitudes towards punishments in the workhouse?
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Queen Anne

How can we find out about her?
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Rebels in the records

What can we learn from documents that show how people ‘rebelled’ in the past?
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Richard II

Were the troubles facing England in the 1370s and 1380s due to Richard II’s age and inexperience?
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Rob Roy

A Victorian railway accident
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Role of a Queen – Mary I and Anne

What can we find out about the roles of Queen Mary I and Queen Anne?

Samuel Pepys

What does his will reveal?
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Seafarers’ Stories

How can we tell the stories of the Mirpuri, Bengali and Panjabi seafarers who travelled to Britain in the 1920s-30s?
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Selling the Victorians

Victorians for sale! Has advertising changed from Victorian times?

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

What can an object reveal about its owner and life in Medieval England?
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Sixties Britain

A social and cultural revolution?
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Slavery

How did the Abolition Acts of 1807 and 1833 affect the slave trade?
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Suffragettes through government eyes

What do government records reveal about the suffrage movement?
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Sugar

What can original documents tell us about the history of sugar?

The Beautiful Game

What can our documents reveal about an incredible sports match?
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The Boxers of Whitechapel

What do the documents reveal about the inhabitants?
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The Chinese Civil War

Why did the fighting between the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party happen?
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The Holocaust

Key documents from The National Archives
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The Holocaust

What can British government documents tell us about what happened in the Holocaust?
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The Home Front

How did people prepare for the war at home?
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The Independence of Bangladesh in 1971

What can British documents tell us about the creation of Bangladesh?
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The King, the Crown and the Colonel

How did Thomas Blood try to steal the Crown Jewels in 1671?
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The Mangrove Nine

How much can documents from The National Archives reveal about the Mangrove Nine?
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The Search for ‘Terra Australis’

What did Captain Cook’s secret mission involve?
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The Sinking of the Titanic

Why were so many lives lost in the disaster?
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The South African War

How did the British conduct war in 1899-1902?

The Yellow Bicycle

A story of migration
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Tobacco

James I & VI: How was tobacco viewed, consumed, and traded in the Stuart period?
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Travel smart through time (SEND)

How and why have people travelled around in the past and how have they done it safely?
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Trimdon

What was it like living in a late 19th century mining town?

TTTV: Refugee Week 2021

What can we learn from documents about Basque children’s experiences in refugee camps?
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Tudor Entertainment

What was the effect of the early playhouses?
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Tudor rebellions

How seriously did they challenge the authority of the crown?

Tudors: Image of a King

How did monarchs present an ‘image’ of themselves in the past?
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Twenties Britain (part one)

Decade of conflict, realignment and change?
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Twenties Britain (part two)

Decade of conflict, realignment and change?
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Ugandan Asians

What was the impact of the expulsion from Uganda on the lives of British Asians?
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Uncovering LGBTQ+ lives in the archive

What types of sources might be useful to find out about the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the past?
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Uncovering the past

How can we use photographs to find out about the past?
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Victorian family history

How can we find out about the life of a Victorian child?
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Victorian Health Reform

How did the Victorians view compulsory vaccination?
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Victorian homes

Was there much difference between rich and poor homes?
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Victorian lives

How was life different in Victorian times?
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Walter Tull

How can we use sources to find out about him?
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Wartime Propaganda

How did Britain try to keep the support of West African peoples?
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What caused the 1832 Great Reform Act?

Political and social reform in 19th century Britain
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What is a Jubilee?

What can we find out about Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee?
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What was Chartism?

Political and social reform in 19th century Britain
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Whitechapel

How can we find out about what Whitechapel was like in 1888?
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Who was Noor Khan?

What can documents reveal about her role during the Second World War?
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William Shakespeare

What can we find out about his life?
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Workhouse Women

How were women treated in the Victorian workhouse?
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World Cup 1966

Did England rig the result?