The Searchlight Archive is an internationally-important repository of material documenting far right and antifascist activities in Britain and across the world, primarily in the period 1945 to 2010.
The main collection is held on indefinite loan from Searchlight magazine, which has its origins in the 62 Group – a Jewish antifascist organisation of the 1960s.
The Archive is open three days a week, and overseen by Dr Daniel Jones.
The material in the archive is used to teach students in different courses across the University and, through partnership with Gale (a CENGAGE company), students across the world.
Within history we make use of material in the collection to help students understand the impact of racial politics through recorded interviews with former leading figures in the British far right, we explore the impact of racism and community responses through magazines, and examine how an interconnected extreme right develops internationally over the past hundred years. On top of this, the Archive is there for students to access for their own research for their dissertations, with a dedicated expert to assist students in their work.
To find out more, please visit: https://www.northampton.ac.uk/about-us/services-and-facilities/the-searchlight-archives/
Our collections include:
- Searchlight Collection – The investigative and administrative records of Searchlight magazine, founded in 1964 to combat racism and fascism.
- The Andy Bell Collection – Material from the BBC World in Action and Panorama programs covering police corruption, the extreme right and violence. Also contains a collection on radical activism within antifascism and student politics in Oxford in the 1970s.
- Race Act 40 – A Heritage Lottery fund-backed project run by Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council that documents through oral history how people in Northamptonshire have experienced racism in their lives.
- The Antifascist Oral History Project – A collection of c. 100 hours of interviews with key antifascist and antiracist campaigners, with activity stretching back to the Battle of Cable Street in 1936.
Our full catalogue is available on the University of Northampton Archive Catalogue.
HISTORY AT NORTHAMPTON 