History Collection

The History collection illuminates the stories of the many people who have lived in or used these palaces over hundreds of years - more than a millennium at the Tower of London. Its diverse range of material includes documents, personal papers, photographs, books, newspapers, magazines and ephemera. It also includes social history objects left behind or given by the ordinary people of the palaces. The ‘grace and favour’ residents who lived at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace after the monarchs left them in the eighteenth century are especially well represented.

A special section is our growing collection of oral history recordings and transcriptions, which record some of the more recent stories of the palaces’ residents and workers from the twentieth century to the present day. This section is made accessible through research, displays, exhibitions and our website.