The National Archives holds government records on a variety of Environmental History topics including colonial environments, weather and climate change, environmental legislation, botanical history, water management, animal histories, and agricultural history. These themes can be found in the records of a wide range of departments, from the Admiralty and Colonial Office to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Our records have informed research projects and events in this area, including an upcoming symposium on Pollution in the Archive, the National Farm Survey digitisation project, and research by our heritage science team on the presence of animals in the materiality of our records.
We are seeking early career researchers to participate in a workshop on archival research in the Environmental Humanities, which will shape our new research guide on this subject which is currently in development.
The workshop will consist of:
- Talks from experts at The National Archives about our collections, sharing ideas of how our records can be used for environmental history research projects
- Talks from external speakers based at organisations including Kew Gardens, the Natural History Museum, and the Met Office
- A display of original documents
- A session to gain feedback on our new Environmental History research guide
