2012 marks 125 years from the opening of the Queen’s Hall of the People’s Palace.  The original People’s Palace included an events hall, swimming pool, tennis courts, winter garden and library and played an important role in the local community.

In addition to cataloguing the records of the People’s Palace, the Archives will be digitising the Palace Journal, a newspaper advertising events, stories and articles on many different topics, which circulated from 1887 to 1895.

The Palace Journals not only provide a rich account of the early years of the People’s Palace but a valuable insight into Victorian culture and social history. They include:

• Articles referring to the Whitechapel Murders.
• Articles by writer Arthur Morrison (1863-1945), who worked as a clerk at the People’s Palace 1886-1890, and in 1896 published A Child of the Jago.
• Personal accounts describing the east end of the 1880s.

As well as allowing users to view these journal issues online for the first time, the records will also be searchable allowing users to search for names, subjects, events, and dates.

The digitised records will be available online from August 2012. To find out more about the People’s Palace collection, see the Archives Catalogue or email archives@qmul.ac.uk