Politics and Pressure Groups

The History Centre collections include a huge qunatity of material relating to politics and pressure groups including the papers of politicians and political parties and trade unions.  

The term 'pressure group' is used quite loosely, and is taken to include organisations represented in the archives which have organised campaigns on behalf of their membership. The groups represented here are extremely varied and include 'ginger' groups associated with (but perhaps not officially part of) the Labour and Conservative Parties, co-operative groups such as the Co-operative Women's Guild, friendship societies such as the China Campaign Committee, and religious groups, such as the Anglican Evangelical Group Movement.

Many collections include files on, or specimens from, other pressure groups, for example a file on the Housewives' League can be found within the archive of Liberty. The survival (and retention) rates for pressure group records is often very poor.