Spies like us: The secret life of Ernest Oldham

03/14/14 • 40 min

The security service files held at The National Archives in series KV 2 reveal that many people involved in espionage, like Foreign Office clerk Ernest Oldham, were ordinary folk who entered an extraordinary world by chance - often with tragic consequences. His story, told through phone intercepts, surveillance notes and secret service reports, reveals the human cost of spying in the 1920s and 1930s.

Dr Nick Barratt works in the Advice and Records Knowledge department. Previously he ran was involved in researching and presenting a number of television series. He has published several books, most recently Greater London: The Story of the Suburbs, and he lectures regularly about history and the media.

Previous Episode

Big Ideas: The Great Archive Debate: a view from York

At the end of the last century the great heritage debate transformed thinking about public engagement with the past in historic sites and museums. Do new initiatives in archives promise something similar in public engagement with history now, and how might new digital initiatives help?

Sarah Rees Jones and Victoria Hoyle give an overview of some of the current new developments in public use of archives that are developing in York, from digital initiatives and new archival search software using artificial intelligence to the development of new public services. What is the value in cross-sector collaboration between the arts and sciences and between universities and archives in developing new archival practice? Where do we go next?

Sarah Rees Jones is a medievalist and the Director of the Institute for the Public (IPUP). Victoria Hoyle is a part-time PhD student in the Department of History, University of York.

Next Episode

'...we may lie and die in a land of plenty...': The Victorian poor in their own words

In all but the most specialist accounts of Victorian histories the poor are often represented through generalisations, graphs or summed up in 'averaging' paragraphs. More detailed work might look at the experiences of individual poor people through pulling together accounts from contemporary newspapers, the letters of the wealthy, or poor law officials and government inspectors who write about the poor. Few historians have looked at accounts of poor people's lives written by the poor themselves. There are good reasons for this: many poor people were unable to write and many letters undoubtedly do not survive; and the letters that survive are scattered across a great many archives, usually unlisted in large collections. This talk will concentrate on a collection of such pauper letters, statements and petitions which demonstrate the concerns, thoughts and feeling of the poor themselves.

Paul Carter is the principal domestic records specialist in the Advice and records knowledge department at The National Archives. His research and publication interests include early labour movements and popular politics.