Volunteering

Unlocking London’s pensions history ….

When the Pensions Archive was established at London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) run by the City of London one of the attractions was the extensive business archives (well over 1,000 collections in total) as well as many other collections relating to the history of London held by LMA which could hold pension-related material.

The Pensions Archive Trust and the LMA launched a major project to research these collections for pension material in summer 2011. The project volunteer, Malcolm Deering, worked with the Trust’s Archivist on the compilation of a guide to pension material held in the LMA business collections, now available on the PAT website.

The guide covers a range of material relating to pensions and other forms of provision for old age and includes material from the following collections:

• Whitbread and Company Limited
• Courage, Barclay and Simmonds (Brewers)
• Anglo-Portuguese Bank
• Metropolitan Railway Company
• The Baltic Exchange
• The Press Association
• Royal Scottish Corporation
• Corporation of London
• Middlesex Sessions (which includes petitions relating to Royal Navy pensions)
• Parmiter’s Foundation including Bethnal Green Philanthropic Pension Society