University Archives
Contents
This guide offers a short introduction to the pressure group archives held by Hull University Archives. Our first major collection - that of the Union of Democratic Control - was acquired in 1968, having been salvaged by John Saville of the University's Department of Economic & Social History, from the bottom of a lift shaft in the UDC's former London offices. The number of holdings has grown steadily over the years. This guide covers some 38 collections ranging from small, short-lived, single issue local groups, such as the Beverley Minster open space campaign, to large, successful, continuing organisations such as Liberty and Justice.
Many collections include files on, or specimens from, other pressure groups, a good example being a file on the Housewives' League to be found within the archive of Liberty. The survival (and retention) rates for pressure group records is often very poor. Historically, and quite naturally, very few of those involved in such organisations have seen the creation of useful historical archives as an objective. Consequently, papers kept by individual members can often be quite significant, and occasionally represent the sole surviving records for some groups. This guide therefore covers pressure group records both in organisational and individual terms. Equally, the archives of Members of Parliament (of which Hull University Archives has many) often contain numerous files relating to those pressure groups with which they were (or are) connected, or which have been active in trying to influence them.
The term 'pressure group' is used quite loosely, and is taken to include all those organisations represented in the archives which at one stage or another have organised campaigns either in relation to one or more issues or on behalf of their membership. This means that the groups represented here are extremely varied, and include not only clearly identifiable pressure groups such as the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, but also 'ginger' groups associated with (but perhaps not officially part of) the Labour and Conservative Parties, co-operative groups such as the Co-operative Women's Guild, friendship societies such as the China Campaign Committee, and religious groups, such as the Anglican Evangelical Group Movement.