Jodie Kidd, model and TV personality, visited the Parliamentary Archives for the BBC programme Who Do You Think You Are? in 2007.
She used the papers of David Lloyd George to find out about her great grandfather, Sir Rowland Hodge. Lloyd George was Prime Minster when Hodge was given a baronetcy, and his correspondence showed Jodie how this had happened.
The locations of personal paper collections in archives across the UK can be traced at the National Register of Archives. You can search this by personal name to find out where papers are held, then contact the specific archive for further information.
The Parliamentary Archives holds a number of personal paper collections including Prime Ministers David Lloyd George and Andrew Bonar Law, the press magnate Lord Beaverbrook, Liberal cabinet minister Herbert Samuel, and others. All of these are catalogued and the descriptions can be searched for by word or phrase and date on the Parliamentary Archives catalogue, as Jodie did. If you find anything of interest, you can contact us to make an appointment to visit or order copies.
The following clips from the BBC website show Jodie's discoveries.
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Explore the history, building and collections of Parliament, and find out about the impact of Parliament on everyday lives over the centuries