Expressions of love

This poem, and its accompanying music, was found on the back of a draft official report for an enquiry into a 1457 riot. Despite its lack of relevance to government records, the poems attachment to a government document has led to its survival. The poem suggests that the writer experienced unrequited love:

‘She that is causer of my woe,

I marvel that she will do so,

since I love her and no more’

Here, love is shown as a pursuit, game and dance, which may reflect the poem’s courtly origins, as the refrain ‘Alone I live, alone’ appears here and in a songbook owned by the King.

The poet’s identity remains unknown. It may have been written by a clerk or official with his own experience of unrequited love. The final verse speaks of the joy that he would feel if his feelings were returned:

‘Once me to love if she began,

No man with tongue nor pen tell can

The joy in me that would be than’

The Netherlands faced turmoil and revolution after France and England invaded in 1672. During this time, Mijntje wrote from Amsterdam to her husband, Willem, who was thousands of miles away in Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia).

She expresses heartache about being apart in difficult times, wishing that ‘you write to me that at night in your bunk you hold your pillow in your arms and imagine that I am with you, my beloved, and that I should write to you that I do the same – but it is in vain: I must bear the time with endurance’.

While unable to write herself, Mijntje had this letter drafted by the third of her three surviving children.

Sadly, Willem would never receive her letter. She sent it on a ship from Amsterdam that was then wrecked off the coast of Dorset. The letter was found in the surviving papers from the ship sent to the High Court of Admiralty in London, where it was archived.

Isaac Church was a sailor from Wareham, Massachusetts, serving aboard the whaling ship Desire. As ship’s mate, he kept a detailed log of the ship’s movements. Like many sailors, he also used his log for personal writing, including this heartfelt letter to a woman named Rosanna.

It seems likely that Isaac had asked Rosanna to marry him and was rejected as she planned to marry someone else. In his letter, he expresses that ‘I can No More Cease to Love you than I can Cease to Love my Self’. He also shared his plans to run away to sea and ‘tear your Image from my heart’.

Isaac spent the next five years sailing aboard the Desire, sailing mainly from nearby Nantucket. The drafted letter, which may never have been sent, appears in our archives as a ‘Prize Paper’, taken when the Desire was captured by the Royal Navy during the American Revolution.

In this moving letter to the Poor Law Board, Daniel Rush complains about the Bethnal Green Poor Law Union (a local government body that provided welfare). He states that the union had refused to support his family when they found it difficult to find full-time employment. The local authorities had instead insisted the elderly couple should go to the workhouse. This would have led to ‘Sepratin me from my Wife Wich I have had 49 years’.

Rush highlights this injustice, declaring, ‘so[o]ner then We Would be separated We Will Perish for Want.’ Here, he is expressing that he would rather face extreme poverty than be separated from his wife.

Rush also references the Consolidated General Order, which states that married couples should not be separated by poor law unions. This shows the human emotions found in our collections, but also that paupers (impoverished people) understood their rights.

Fanny and Stella, also known as Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton, were performers who presented as women on and off stage. They also used masculine and feminine names and pronouns interchangeably in their personal lives. This letter shows the support of Ernest/Stella’s mother, Mary Anne Boulton, who was aware of their gender expression, describing them as ‘my ever beloved child.’

The letter, full of everyday details and motherly warmth, was written shortly before Stella’s 1870 arrest for ‘buggery’. This correspondence was later seized as evidence during the highly publicised trial relating to Ernest/Stella’s sexuality and gender presentation. The trial ended in acquittal but its ruling encouraged extending the criminalisation of same-sex relationships in Britain.

This letter offers an intimate look into the relationship between James Ramsay MacDonald (the working-class Labour party leader) and Lady Margaret Sackville, an aristocratic poet. Their romance, lasting from 1913 to 1928, was marked by longing and separation: ‘Why aren’t you here? I want you & you are hundreds of miles away & I cannot even kiss you.’

MacDonald proposed marriage at least three times but was always refused by Sackville. It is likely that religious and class differences were the main reason for these rejections. Neither married after this relationship.

Around 150 letters related to their relationship can be found at The National Archives. Only half of their correspondence survives as we only have MacDonald’s words to Sackville. In one letter he wrote, ‘Of course you will put this in the fire and it will blaze fiercely as love always does.’

The First World War led to the separation of millions of families. For most, the only way to keep in touch was to put pen to paper. Unusually, contained in the service record for William Crawford (a Trooper in the Household Cavalry) are the letters written to him by Hetty.

Only the letters sent by Hetty survive, and their contents are full of affection towards William, showing the love between them. Hetty’s words describe her feelings towards her ‘dear Will’. One letter, dated 29 January 1917, shows that though she understands that ‘many will have to give their lives yet before this war will end. But my one prayer is that they will never take you’.

Hetty continues sending letters to William for another year, until February 1918. This is when he died of wounds sustained days before his unit was withdrawn from the Western Front.

In October 1919, James Gillespie, a Jamaican-born owner of a fish and chip shop in South Wales, wrote to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He pleaded, ‘I am begging…give me and family passage to Jamaica.’

The appeal came after his home was destroyed by rioters during the violent 1919 race riots. These clashes, which erupted in port towns across Britain, specifically targeted Black communities. Many of those affected, like Gillespie, lived in, worked in, and even militarily served Britain for years.

Gillespie made it clear that he was ‘willing to leave the country at once with my wife and child (not without),’ emphasising his love for them and determination to keep his family together. The fate of Gillespie remains unknown, just like the many untold stories of ordinary people found in our collections. His letter is preserved among our West Indies Original Correspondence.

This New Year’s letter from Macnamara to Bobby shows queer friendships across global borders.

In 1927, Bobby hosted joyful gatherings for his queer, working-class friends at 25 Fitzroy Square, London. When this private home was raided for being a ’disorderly house’, nine letters and a Christmas card were discovered and used as evidence.

The letters reference sexuality and gender identity, revealing chosen family and enduring connections between queer people during a hostile period. Macnamara writes to Bobby: ‘there is nothing finer… than sincere friendship and I do trust that ours may prove so as long as we live.’ These letters, which were written years before the raid, freely show love and resilience.

Bobby was ultimately sentenced to 15 months’ hard labour for his 'disorderly house'. Once released, he travelled to America, perhaps inspired by Macnamara’s time there.