Diagram of a slave ship
Shopping for fabric
Wordsworth, 'Daffodils'
Textiles from India
Beethoven's sketches
Exhibition of a rhino and zebra
Deciphering the Rosetta Stone
Battle of Waterloo letter
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Peterloo Massacre
Cartoon of a street accident
Shampooing Surgeon
Description of London
Execution of a 12 year old boy
Diary entry on 'The Pillory'
Invention of photography
1832 Reform Act
Tolpuddle Martyrs
Early Chartist meeting notes
Dickens, Oliver Twist
The People's Charter
Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby
Poster for Living Mermaid
The Railways
First postage stamp
Coal mining
Popular entertainments
Engels: factory conditions
Freak show: What is it?
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
The Communist Manifesto
Chartist William Cuffay
The Great Exhibition
Sketch for the Crystal Palace
Woman's magazine
Poverty and the workhouse
London Zoo
Cookery for the poor
Human Exhibition
Mary Seacole
Ship building
Britain's Indian empire
Nightingale, Notes on Nursing
Victorian fashion
Florence Nightingale letter
Coal mining
Mrs Beeton - Lady's maid
Mrs Beeton
Mrs Beeton's Turkey
A Hulk (prison ship)
Underground trains
Alice in Wonderland
Letter from Charles Darwin
City slums
Opening of the Suez Canal
Music Hall
Street sellers
Freakshow posters
Invention of the telephone
Illusionists and conjurers
The textile industry
Victorian farming
Magic show
Circus poster
Victoria's Indian servant
Match Girls Strike
Jack the Ripper murders
Daily shopping
An Asian MP in Parliament
Gladstone: Irish Home Rule
Oscar Wilde on trial
Nightingale Nurse diary
Factory accidents
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Elected Liberal MP for Finsbury in 1892, Dadabhai Naoroji was the first Indian to win a seat in parliament, despite Lord Salisbury’s jibe that the British electorate would not accept a ‘black man’ as an MP.
Naoroji’s election provoked mixed reactions: some saw it as ‘an odd choice for an English constituency’, while high-profile public figures including Labour politician Keir Hardy and Florence Nightingale endorsed him.
Naoroji supported the Liberal Party programme in parliament. He also campaigned for ‘justice for India’ to make the public aware of the reality of life under British rule. In his book Poverty of India he argued that Britain ‘drained’ India of £30-40 million every year, causing widespread poverty.
Naoroji lost his seat when the Liberals were defeated in 1895. A plaque on Finsbury Town Hall commemorates Naoroji as the first Asian elected to the House of Commons.