The collection consists of member lists and registers; correspondence, notes and publications relating to the building of the new theatre; financial papers relating to loans; financial papers concerning various productions; legal papers relating to the lease of land; applications to the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Greater London Council for funding, including annual reports and accounts; papers and publicity material relating to productions; scripts; programmes and posters for plays; material concerned with the Women's festival of June 1986; publications about fringe theatres and the East End of London; photographs of productions and cast; press cuttings.

Constitution of the National Council of Labour Colleges; minutes of the conference on Class Co-ordination; papers of the executive committee, the annual conference, the annual meeting, and the publication sub-committee; and annual reports by the secretary and the executive sub-committee on the financing and running of the colleges and classes.

Letter from Samuel Smiles of 6 Granvill Park Terrace, Blackheath, London to R Harrison, Esq, 22 Jun 1860. Answering enquiries on 'the actual condition of the working classes'. 'The bulk of the writers who write for the working classes are, though very decent penny a liners, for the most part people who know nothing about them, and merely get up what will sell for the day.'

Autograph, with signature.

Papers and lectures by Reverend Henry Solly in his investigation into the social and religious condition of the working class.

The archive consists of Mary Ann Rawle's working papers relating to the women's suffrage campaign and the Independent Labour Party. It includes correspondence, a prison diary describing her time in Holloway, an illuminated address and a badge awarded for bravery in prison, copy family certificates and photographs.

Records of the Liverpool Victoria Approved Society, including reports of annual meetings and liabilities account book.

Records of the London County Council Housing Department, 1845-1971, including subject and policy files regarding the Becontree Estate; Old Oak Estate; National Housing and Town Planning Council; visits to estates and to the Housing Department Chart Room; correspondence; rents; Norbury Estate; Roehampton Estate Tenants Association; Watling Estate; White Hart Lane Estate, Tottenham and the Bellingham Estate.

Selection of reports relating to the Housing of the Working Classes, bound into volumes; annual reports of the Housing Committee; Housing Manager's annual reports and statistical tables; Workmen's Trains: report of the case of LCC and others versus Great Eastern Railway Company and others before the Railway and Canal Commission of the High Court; evidence from the Inquiry into the Whitecross Street Scheme; Housing notebook containing particulars of the Council's Estates and Dwellings; lecture "Working Class Dwellings - the Rebuilding of the Boundary Street Estate" by Owen Fleming, assistant architect to LCC; lecture "Overcrowded London" by R.M Beachcroft, LCC alderman; speech "A Remedy for Overcrowding in London" by Henry Jephson; lecture "Slum Areas in London" by Cecil B Levita, chairman of the LCC Housing Committee; LCC Housing Progress Handbook.

Plans and details of Standard Types of LCC Housing Accommodation; Acts of Parliament relating to housing functions and lodging houses; plans referred to in schemes made under the Housing of the Working Classes Act; map and guide to LCC housing estates; samples of tenant's handbooks; Code of Instructions for the Guidance of Superintendents of Estates; rent books and tenancy file of a model tenant on the Downham Estate; large poster inviting applications for tenancy of LCC dwellings, listing all estates with details of accommodation and rents; samples of completed application forms for tenancy of Council houses and flats.

Photocopies of c230 manuscript and typescript autobiographies of English, Welsh and Scottish working class individuals, c1790-1945, collated and copied by John Burnett, David Mayall and David Vincent for their The autobiography of the working class (Harvester Press, Brighton, 1984-1989). The majority of authors recall memories of their childhoods and early working lives in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

This collection contains a single manuscript volume, the 'Naval Surgeons Casebook'. The volume begins with details of cases, symptoms and cures of Nathaniel Bedford's patients at St George's hospital during 1781. The rest of the volume contains descriptions of cases, sickness, and treatments during his travels whilst a ship's surgeon in the West Indies during 1781-1783.

Record of the inhabitants of Katharine Buildings, Cartwright Street, Aldgate, London.

Section 1: Letters from Herbert Burrows to members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) about the Staffordshire miners strike, on which he was reporting for 'Justice', correspondence concerning 'Justice' and the SDF by various authors, articles intended for 'Justice', either undated or dated 1884.
Section 2: Letters to 'Justice' and various members of the SDF, 1884-1889.
Section 3: Manuscripts of articles for 'Justice', mainly undated.
Section 4: 4/1 Fly sheet. Eight hours demonstration at Birmingham town Hall, Herbert Burrows, Chairman, on the back pencil notes on wages in the metal trades; 4/2 Walter Crane cartoon for May Day; Appendix (M859 R (SR) ARC2) William Morris letter to "Dear Comrade of the SDF, the Labour League and Justice", 19 Dec 1885.