The personal and political correspondence of George Lansbury (1859 – 1940), gathered by his biographer and son-in-law Raymond Postgate. George Lansbury was a Labour MP who become borough councillor in Poplar in 1903 and Leader of the Labour Party in 1931 – 1935. Lansbury was interested in the causes and prevention of poverty and unemployment. He was a member of the Central Unemployed Body for London and also a member of the Royal Commission on Poor Law and Relief of Distress, where he signed the minority report. In 1929 he became the first Commissioner of Works and also established the first Poor Law Labour Colony and the first Labour Colony for the Unemployed (apart from the Poor Law and under public control) at Hollesley Bay. He was also a founder of the 'Daily Herald' and its editor from 1919 to 1923. The papers including the following topics: schools, the Labour Party, unemployment, agriculture, India, the 1931 Cabinet Crisis, and the Metropolitan Police; personal and official photographs, and caricatures from the press; press reviews of Lansbury's published works; printed matter, including articles, pamphlets, speeches and leaflets by or concerning Lansbury, election addresses, and personal ephemera.

Charles Booth’s enquiry (1886-1903) was a ground-breaking social investigation into late-Victorian London. The enquiry’s most famous outputs are the poverty maps which showed street-by-street levels of wealth and poverty. LSE Library holds Booth’s original notebooks and 2nd edition maps which formed the basis for his publication, 'Life and Labour of the People in London'.