There have been 22 unique Leaders of the Labour Party* since it was founded, although two have done it twice, and one has done it three times.

I typed their names into the archives catalogue to see which collections their names cropped up in, and took a picture of what I found. All the images featured come from LSE Library’s collection of British politicians and parties.

*technically, there was no “Leader of the Labour Party” position until 1922 but nobody likes a sentence that begins with “technically” so let’s just get over it.

1. Keir Hardie (1906–1908)

Keir Hardie has legendary status as one of the founders of the Labour Party. There’s a bunch of photographs of him in the archives along with a few letters written by him, but I chose this one. It comes from an invite to his jubilee, and on the front cover displays a picture of him addressing a suffrage demonstration in Trafalgar Square on the 19th May, 1906.

2. Arthur Henderson (1908–1910, 1914–1917, 1931–1932)

Arthur Henderson seems to be much less photogenic, and it was hard to find a trace of him in the archives despite the fact that he was Leader of the Labour Party on three separate occasions.

The above picture is the first minute book of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), one of the precursor organisations that led to the foundation of the Labour Party (a beast of an archive composed of some 270 boxes!) Henderson is listed in the minutes of various ILP meetings so I can get away with using this image of the first ever minute book of the ILP.

3. George Nicoll Barnes (1910–1911)

This is probably a picture of George Nicoll Barnes, sat on a chair in the doorway of Shaw’s Corner in 1912, taken by George Bernard Shaw. Shaw was a prolific experimental photographer, and there is a large collection of his photographs (here’s one of him surfing at age 75, and subsequently colourised by Andy Jack)

4. Ramsay MacDonald (1911- 1914, 1922–1931)

I found this wonderful photograph of Ramsay MacDonald whilst becoming slightly obsessed with a bench I sometimes sit on. If you too are slightly fascinated by benches, then you might “enjoy” reading this.

5. William Adamson (1917–1921)

Just like Arthur Henderson, traces of William Adamson in the archives were hard to find. Here in the main part of the library (sitting amongst all the “ordinary” books on the 1st floor) I found a pamphlet co-authored by him, on the soul of Labour.

6. J. R. Clynes (1921–1922)

J. R. Clynes was the first leader of the Labour Party to have been born in England (the first 5 were all Scottish). During his time as Home Secretary, Clynes was famous for refusing to grant a visa to Leon Trotsky (you can read him talking about in in the Commons here). This verbatim report issued by the Society for the Abolition of the Blasphmey Laws includes transcripts of Graham Wallace’s speech to Clynes. Graham Wallas was one of the co-founders of LSE, and taught there from 1895 to his retirement in 1923.

7. George Lansbury (1932–1935)

George Lansbury (whose grand daughter is Angela Lansbury) is probably my favourite human in the archives. He was imprisoned twice in his life: once for addressing a rally of the WSPU (Women’s Social and Political Union) and encouraging militant action in support of suffrage, and once for contempt of court during the Poplar Rates Rebellion.

Here he is sitting for a portrait by artist Reginald Brill in 1930. The photograph sits in the George Lansbury archives, some of which are at LSE and some over in Tower Hamlets.

8. Clement Attlee (1935–1955)

George Lansbury (see number 7) was in hospital in 1940 shortly before his death. Here’s Clement Attlee’s letter to him, amongst a file containing hundreds of “get well soon” messages.

9. Herbert Morrison (1955)

This is the only recorded example of politicians fighting amongst themselves, and thankfully has not ever happened since.

10. Hugh Gaitskell (1955–1963)

Your uncle is not the only person to send extremely dull Christmas cards. So did Hugh Gaitskell.

11. George Brown (1963)

This is the weirdest find.

Sigmund Warburg was a merchant banker who had many personal interests, one of which was graphology — the study of handwriting. There are 274 boxes of his personal papers in the archives.

Warburg employed a Swiss graphologist Theodora Driefuss to analyse the handwriting of 100’s of prospective employees, acquaintances and political figures, including Richard Nixon. This is the results of an analysis of George Brown’s handwriting.

12. Harold Wilson (1963–1976)

In 1975, a common market referendum was held in the UK, which asked the electorate “Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?” 67% of the voting electorate said “Yes”. Harold Wilson campaigned for a “Yes” vote, and this is his campaigning leaflet that was sent to households throughout the UK.

You can read the whole of Harold Wilson’s 1975 leaflet here, see other campaigning leaflets from the 1975 referendum, or compare this 1975 government leaflet with the 2016 government leaflet. It’s interesting how the 1975 one has a personal message and photograph from the prime minister — David Cameron is completely absent from the 2016 one.

13. James Callaghan (1976–1980)

Hector Hetherington was a journalist at the Guardian and became manager of BBC Highlands in the late 1970s. He interviewed a huge number of people throughout his career and kept very detailed notes of his meetings. We have his archive of papers where he records his meetings with prime ministers, presidents, and politicians across the world from the late 50’s to mid 70’s. Here’s a meeting he had with James Callaghan in 1973.

14. Michael Foot (1980–1983)

This CND flyer lists Michael Foot as one of its speakers. It details a rally to be held at the Royal Albert Hall. This is within a large collection of the archives of CND, that includes the personal papers of Pat Arrowsmith, one of the organisations co-founders.

15. Neil Kinnock (1983–1992)

I’ve stared at this picture for ages, comparing Neil Kinnock’s ears with other pictures of Neil Kinnock’s ears to check that they are identical to confirm that it is him. It appeared amongst a massive collection of photographs taken by the European Movement, and the only thing I knew was that Kinnock was hiding somewhere within them . This campaigning group was founded in 1948 and campaigned for Britain to join and stay in the EU (we have a large collection of material on both the pro-EU and Eurosceptic side, including the archives of the founder of UKIP)

16. John Smith (1992–1994)

At the end of April 1994, John Smith visited the A&E department of St.Bartholomew’s Hospital to campaign against its closure. A couple of weeks later on the 12th May, Smith had a heart attack, was taken to that same hospital, and was treated by the same doctor who had previously served as his tour guide. He died that day.

This transcript of an interview with John Smith (I’m assuming it is The John Smith) comes from a TV production called “The Writing on the Wall”, which interviewed leading political figures and members of the public about life in the 1970s.

17. Margaret Beckett (1994)

The 300 Group is a pressure group campaigning for more women in parliament and public life, whose records are held in The Women’s Library at LSE. Margaret Beckett is listed here giving a speech at one of a series of training events delivered by the 300 group which “aimed at giving group members greater confidence with economics and politics”.

18. Tony Blair (1994–2007)

Remember him? Here he is chatting to Athony Giddens at an LSE event in 1999.

19. Gordon Brown (2007–2010)

“The Thatcher Factor” was a TV series produced by Brook Lapping that was shown in the early 1990s. It involved interviews of various figures and covered issues of social history during the 1980’s, as well as the impact of Thatcherism and her departure from office. We have a collection of the transcripts of those interviews, and here is Gordon Brown being interviewd about Margaret Thatcher; an interview which seemed to involve a lot of “Ah”s.

20. Harriet Harman (2010, 2015)

Here’s Harriet Harman campaigning in the General Election 1983 (Peckham). She won with 51.6% of the share of the votes.

(if you’re interested in the vote share break down:)

21. Ed Milliband (2010–2015)

David Miliband is sorry that he missed you, and Daniel Payne is sorry that he gave up trying to find you and took a picture of the wrong brother instead.

22. Jeremy Corbyn

Here’s Jeremy Corbyn’s letter to his constituents during the 2016 referendum on the UK’s continuned membership of the European Union. You view this and many other leaflets handing out during the referendum online.