Special Collections on Peace, Politics and Social Change
This is our largest subject area and may be our best known internationally.
Bradford itself has long been seen as a radical city, its rapid development in the 19th century driving pressure for improvements to society. The University was thus a natural home for a new chair in Peace Studies in 1973. The department thrives to this day and in its turn attracted a unique independent library which provides resources on nonviolent social change: Commonweal. Our extensive peace-related collections came to us through these organisations and their networks of links in academia and activist groups.
Our collections tell the story of peaceful protest in the 20th century. Particular strengths include archives of late 1950s and early 1960s nonviolent anti-nuclear campaigning, 1980s peace camps, and initiatives based in the University and its region.
- Adam Curle Archive
- Alternative Defence Commission Archive
- Archive of Book Action for Nuclear Disarmament (BAND)
- Archive of Communities At Risk from the Environment
- Archive of the Campaign to Free Vanunu and for a Nuclear-free Middle East
- Archive of the Community Projects Charitable Trust
- Archive of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War
- Archive of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War
- Archives of Peace News
- Archives of the Campaign against Military Research on Campus
- Archives of the Committee for Conflict Transformation Support
- Archives of the Committee of 100 collected by Derry Hannam
- Archives of the Commonweal Collection
- Archives of the Quaker Peace Studies Trust
- David Hardisty PAX Collection
- Dorothy Freeborn Martin Peace Archive
- Grassington and District Peace Group Archive
- H.G. Alexander Minorities Archive
- Joseph Rotblat Book Collection
- Nuclear Disarmament Symbols Drawings
- Papers of Barbara Bruce
- Papers of Colin Hunter
- Papers of David Markham relating to Tax Refusal
- Papers of Eric Baker
- Papers of Geoffrey Ostergaard
- Papers of Hugh Brock
- Papers of Ian and Jennifer Hartley on the Molesworth Peace Camp
- Papers of John Steel concerning the Gulf Peace Team
- Papers of M.R. Pollock on the Teach-In on Chemical and Biological Warfare
- Papers of Margaret Gardiner
- Papers of Mary Ringsleben relating to the Committee of 100
- Papers of Michael Randle
- Papers of Richard Taylor
- Papers of Sarah Meyer relating to Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
- Papers of Tim Wallis on the Molesworth Peace Camp
- Papers of the European Organiser of the American-European Peace March from San Francisco to Moscow
- Papers of the Sami Support Committee
- Peace Ephemera Collection
- Peggy Smith Drawings
- Records of Architects for Peace
- Records of Bradford Peace Action Group
- Records of London Greenpeace
- Records of Operation Namibia
- Records of the Bradford Nuclear Disarmament Group
- Records of the Peace Tax Campaign
- Records of the West Yorkshire European Nuclear Disarmament Group
- Records of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
- Research Papers of David J. Mitchell on Military Nonconformity
- The Peace Pamphlets Collection
- Windscale Inquiry Records