Archives and sources for LGBT history

The Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive (LAGNA) is based at Middlesex University and boasts a collection of 200,000 press cuttings documenting gay life from the 1930s to the present.

So whether you are interested in the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee in the 1950s, who wore what and why at the Gateways club in the 1960s, the Gay Liberation Front and The Festival of Light in the 1970s, Clause 28 and the ramblings of James Anderton in the 1980s, pink pounds and gay villages in the 1990s or Todd Grimshaw's coming out on Coronation Street in the 2000s, if the press covered it, LAGNA will have the story.

The Hall-Carpenter Archives (HCA) of lesbian and gay activism date from the 1950s and are held at the Library of the London School of Economics.

The archives of influential organisations from the gay rights movement are represented, including the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, Albany Trust, and the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, as well as the personal papers of the activists Antony Grey, Peter Tatchell, Mary McIntosh and Simon Watney.


There is also an extensive collection of gay magazines, newspapers and ephemera from the second half of the 20th century, representing LGBT events and organisations from across the UK and internationally.