USING THE BISHOPSGATE LIBRARY

The London collections contain around 150,000 books and pamphlets on the social and cultural history of London, along with 2,000 maps and around 500,000 photographs and is particularly relevant if your ancestors were in the Bishopsgate and Spitalfields area and other locations in the East End. The London archive section holds a massive collection of press cuttings about the area dating from 1740. There is also one of the best collections of London guidebooks and trade directories covering the capital including Post Office, Kelly’s, Pigot’s and Robson’s directories for London, starting with the City of London guides in 1740 and continuing to the present day.

The Special Collections and Archives on London history include records from many organisations and individuals from police officers to Lord Mayors to historians. The collection also includes more than 9,000 unpublished diaries as part of the Great Diary Project. The Local and Family History collection includes books, journals, leaflets and microfiche on how to research local and family history in London together with other valuable information for both local and family historians.

Although the Institute is not a repository for official records, it holds many transcripts of London, Middlesex and Westminster parish registers, census indexes for many areas of London, Middlesex and the Home Counties and many original records for London organisations.

The printed/published collection on open shelves includes:

• Home Counties Magazine 1899–1912
• Gentleman’s Magazine Library English Topography 1891–1902
• Victoria County Histories
• Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales
• Returns of owners of land 1873
• Various guides to the peerages
• Profession lists
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Annual Register (some gaps)
• British Almanac 1828 – 1914
• Notes and Queries 1849 – 1963
• Gentleman’s Magazine 1731–1868

White Dog Benevolent Society

Records of the White Dog Benevolent Society, established in 1783 at the White Dog public house, Bishopsgate. The aim of the society was to grant aid to the poor during the winter months with the distribution of bread and coals purchased through membership subscriptions, contributions, admissions and fines.

The records include:

• Minute book 1811 – 1825, 1839 – 1869, 1871 - 1876
• Election record book which list name of candidate, proposer, seconder, date of election and other information 1810 - 1867
• Membership book showing name of member, profession, proposer 1815 -1837
• Regulations and law books of the White Dog Benevolent Society
• Various accounting documents
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London Provident Institution

The London Provident Institution was a savings bank established in 1816 originally operating in Bishopsgate Churchyard. The institute hold allied material although much of the main archive is held at the LMA and Lloyds Bank groups archive.

Bishopsgate Ward Ratepayers' Association

The Association was established in 1857 as the St Botolph Bishopsgate Ratepayers' Association with the purpose of correcting abuses in the local government of the ward, to watch over the expenditure and proceedings and to diffuse ward and parochial information by carrying out the principles of a mutual improvement society.

Records include:

• Bishopsgate Ward Ratepayers' Association minute book
• Correspondence, circulars and press cuttings 1857 – 1862
• Bishopsgate Ward Ratepayers' Association rough minute book
• Other records are deposited at the LMA.
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London Co-operative Society

This is an absolutely invaluable collection for anyone researching twentieth-century ancestry in the London area. The London Co-operative Society was established in 1920 by the merger of Stratford Co-operative Society and Edmonton Co-operative Society which were the largest societies in the London. A year later the West London Co-operative Society, the Kingston Co-operative Society and the Co-operative Brotherhood Trust became part of the society. There were also further consolidations up until the late 1930s resulting in most of the Greater London Societies becaming part of the society thus extending the geographical reach to Essex, Hertfordshire and Surrey.

The records of the London Co-operative society are comprehensive and include:

• Share nominations books and ledgers,
• Records of the Simplex Savings Bank including various insurance policies, loans and mortgage agreements etc.
• Extensive papers and correspondence relating to educational, trading and financial activity.
• Committee and subcommittee minutes and reports.
• Photographs of society and individual branches, personalities, educational and cultural events, dating from c 1875.
• Minutes, papers, accounts and balance sheets of many local societies within a twenty-mile radius within Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Surrey and Middlesex
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The Howell Collection

The Howell collection comprises material covering various topics relevant to nineteenth-century trade unionists and social reformers The collection includes:

• Official reports and statements of trade unions including miners, sailors, engineers, and textile workers, friendly societies, co-operatives and other industrial organizations.
• Social History topics
• Information about the fight for working-class political representation, the Chartists and Reform League.
• Information about the campaign for educational reform and the development of technical and vocational instruction.
• Reforms in connection with land ownership.
• Living standards and conditions under the Poor Law including housing, public health, law and order and various prison reforms.
• British Empire.
• Role of the Church of England including the rights of dissenters.
• Abolition of slavery.
• Free trade, commercial and financial reforms.