Daniel F Gosling

Archives, manuscripts and material culture in health and wellbeing research | Reports | Wellcome Archives, manuscripts and material culture collections hold profound potential for advancing knowledge about life, health and wellbeing. This report examines how these collections are currently used i...

From hospital records to family papers, collections give unique insights into health across time and place.

But they don’t just have historical value. Collections have incredible potential for discovery research – and we need to unlock it.

Learn more in our report: wellcome.org/insights/rep...

The King’s Dinner The King’s Dinner is about what it meant to be British at the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing on a large, open dataset of two royal household kitchen ledgers, the authors study the role and inf...

WE HAVE A FRONT COVER!! 📖📚📘
Oh, it makes me so happy!
Available to buy from the 1 June 2026, but if you can't wait til then to dig into our research, the dataset is freely available here: zenodo.org/records/8070...

#skystorians #18thC 🗃️ #foodhistory #amwriting

uclpress.co.uk/book/the-kin...

Want to feel ancient? You can search Find Case Law by emoji. What a brave new world [Find Case Law search for "😄"] caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search?query...

a cartoon of two bears applying for jobs Alt: A cartoon of a panda typing at a laptop and a bear walking back and forth talking. Caption: “applying to jobs”.

Come & work with me! We’re looking for a project manager to oversee digitisation of the National Farm Survey & other grant-funded projects. Fixed-term until March 2027. £39.5k-48.4k. Apply by 3 Dec 2025. www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi...

Schedule of depositions taken in the 1650s

18th Century schedule of depositions

E 133/162 contains schedules of depositions taken by the Barons of the Exchequer, a rare insight into the process behind the legal cases and records we know and love. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C5...

Only one box, sadly, put at the end of the main series of Barons' Depositions [E 133], but a cool find nonetheless (I listed these a few years ago).

Schedule of depositions taken in the 1650s

18th Century schedule of depositions

E 133/162 contains schedules of depositions taken by the Barons of the Exchequer, a rare insight into the process behind the legal cases and records we know and love. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C5...

Fresh on the catalogue, REQ 2/280, more Elizabethan Court of Requests goodness. Over 20,000 new item descriptions and counting for this oft-overlooked conciliar court. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C...

15th century plea roll

15th century plea roll

15th century plea roll, title rotulet

Plea Roll for the Court of Common Pleas for Richard III's reign. Nothing to add, really, I just think it's cool. TNA CP 40/888 discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3...

16th Century signature

Commissioner's report with signature, 16th Century

An absolutely outstanding signature on this commissioner's return for an Elizabethan Duchy Chamber case. TNA DL 1/42/K1b

Fresh on the catalogue, REQ 2/280, more Elizabethan Court of Requests goodness. Over 20,000 new item descriptions and counting for this oft-overlooked conciliar court. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C...

Thomas Carne, serjeant at law, I think.

16th Century signature

Commissioner's report with signature, 16th Century

An absolutely outstanding signature on this commissioner's return for an Elizabethan Duchy Chamber case. TNA DL 1/42/K1b

List of Privy Councillors, 1591

There's loads we can learn from these records (I gave a talk on them a few years back), such as who was present in Council on a particular day (or at least who made sure to get the register signed on their behalf 😅)

Title for 16th Century accounts

"The expenses of the diets provided for the Queen's Majesty's most honourable Privy Council at Her Grace's Star Chamber"

16th Century list of accounts

Not strictly a legal record, this Star Chamber diet book nevertheless informs us how the Privy Council sitting judicially in the Star Chamber ran the court. Or, at least, tells us the vast amount they ate and drank on a particular day [TNA E 407/55]

We’ve published a fantastic new primary source collection—"Radicalism and Popular Protest in Georgian Britain, c. 1714–1832”.

Visit the collection landing page at buff.ly/Mf1q0nH.

MEMS to Host the Fifteenth Century Conference 2026

Are you a scholar of the fifteenth century and have an interest in the British Isles and its wider connections? If so, then you will want to know that @memsunikent.bsky.social will be hosting the 2026 Fifteenth Century Conference in Canterbury and the CfP is now open: www.kent.ac.uk/medieval-ear...

Want to showcase and share the fantastic #Archives and #RecordsManagement work that you’re doing with the sector? There’s still room in the Industry news and Community news sections of the Jan/Feb issue of ARC Magazine! Please get in touch via arceditors@archives.org.uk

These catalogue updates allow me, a serious historian, to search for "fart" and find the case where the accused allegedly said he "cared not a fart for the Lord Mayor of London." What will you find? discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_a...

Document ordering slip, c.1900-1910

Document ordering slip, c.1900-1910

I'm not saying the records I look at aren't consulted very often, but today, a PRO document ordering slip from the early 1900s dropped out of the volume I was looking at.

Document ordering slip, c.1900-1910

Document ordering slip, c.1900-1910

I'm not saying the records I look at aren't consulted very often, but today, a PRO document ordering slip from the early 1900s dropped out of the volume I was looking at.

A person reaches for an item from a shelf of books.

We’re launching our new catalogue on Monday 8 December.

To keep our collections safe while we do this, access and ordering will be suspended for a week before launch and all requests for 8 December onwards must be made on the new system when it launches.

Find out more: bit.ly/CollectionSu...

Delighted to discover a trend for early modern religious figures to disguise their names by rearranging the syllables. William Tyndale became Daltin, Hugh Latimer became Merlat, and Nicholas Shaxton became Tonshax. And in his will Shaxton mentioned his son Thomas 'Dratsab' - a bastard.

Duchy Chamber pleadings for the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (DL 1/1-26) are now searchable to item level online. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C...

No problem, I also remembered seeing it somewhere but couldn't quite place it! BL really burying the lead!

Collection access and item requesting temporarily suspended We are suspending item ordering and access to our entire collection from Monday 1 – Sunday 7 December 2025.

Big update 8 December apparently, with confirmation that the MS catalogue will be launched around then www.bl.uk/stories/news...

Annual Diversity, Dilemmas and Discoveries Conference - Moments of Rupture Join us for the 6th annual Diversity, Dilemmas and Discoveries Conference - Moments of Rupture

Now open for booking: OU Law School's legal histories conference. This year's theme is 'moments of rupture' and we have an exciting range of speakers, topics, jurisdictions and periods.

20-21 November, online, free.

Programme and booking at the link.

These catalogue updates allow me, a serious historian, to search for "fart" and find the case where the accused allegedly said he "cared not a fart for the Lord Mayor of London." What will you find? discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_a...

Series description for STAC 5

Item descriptions for STAC 5 (Star Chamber proceedings for Elizabeth I) underwent a significant overhaul this year, updating 40,000 items to include party names, county, and much more. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1...