Andrew Roth’s chronicles of Westminster go to City archives

Two collections from a political journalist at Westminster and an author unique in chronicling life in London’s East End have been presented to the Bishopsgate Institute in the City of London for its public archives.

One was built up by Andrew Roth, a well-known figure among politicians and journalists in Westminster for half-a-century who died in 2008 age 91.

It includes biographical files for each MP and peer from the 1950s onward.

The institute describes it as “an unparalleled resource for the study of post-War British politics.”

The files were used to compile Roth’s ‘Parliamentary Profiles’, a satirical look at the MPs elected to each Parliament, containing every speech, press cuttings, ephemera and sometimes correspondence.

The collection is being sorted and should be ready for public access in September.

The other collection is from historian and author Gilda O’Neill, a regular user of the Library and chronicler of social history in the East End.

It includes research notes, published and unpublished drafts, correspondence and audio cassettes of various fiction and non-fiction works, most famously ‘My East End: Life in Cockney London’, published in 1999.