London stories
Explore the stories of the world's greatest city and uncover the hidden treasures of our collections.
All stories
The history of London's Newgate Prison
London’s longest-running prison was home to high-profile criminals, common thieves and the condemned
Who was Charles Dickens?
19th-century London’s most celebrated writer gave us Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol
Thomas Rowlandson’s satirical London drawings
Laughing at life in the 18th and 19th century
Wenceslaus Hollar’s etchings of fashion & fire
A 17th-century recorder of women’s clothes and London's skyline
Oliver Cromwell: The man who could have been king
Cromwell’s victories in the Civil Wars took him to the very top
Graham Sutherland’s eerie Blitz drawings
This south London-born artist recorded the carnage of the Second World War
The Havering Hoard
London’s largest ever Bronze Age hoard, bundled up and buried 3,000 years ago
Jack the Ripper
How the murders of five women birthed an infamous East End crime story
The London life of William Shakespeare
The work of this celebrated English playwright has strong roots in the capital
Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, artist, activist
This famous votes-for-women campaigner set herself apart as an artist and social activist
The Great Plague of 1665
An estimated 100,000 people died in London’s last major plague epidemic
Jack Sheppard: An 18th-century working class hero
How one young criminal became a working class hero by escaping London prisons four times.
