The Request A Freedom of Information request rarely turns into a story. Usually it turns into a table, a paragraph of caveats, and a line saying nothing further is held. Reference CAS-289300 is one of those, answered by The National Archives in the United Kingdom and published on nationalarchives.gov.uk on November 11, 2025. The requester … Read more
Princess Anne did not write many letters that changed the course of a country. This one, addressed to her brother-in-law in November 1688, is usually counted as one that did. The Letter Itself The document is a single handwritten letter from Princess Anne, second daughter of King James II, to William of Orange. She wrote … Read more
A request, and what it asked for On May 3, 2026, The National Archives published its response to Freedom of Information request CAS-325497, filed under the title “Documentation relating to OPSI.” The request sought the paperwork behind Registry Trust Ltd’s authority to license and commercially redistribute data from the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines, … Read more
Most estate duty files are exactly as dull as their name promises: a ledger of who inherited what, and how much the Crown collected for the privilege. IR 59/805, the death duty account for the writer Virginia Woolf, follows that form to the letter. It also contains one line the form was never built to … Read more
Filed as Threat: The Accidental Archive of Black Publishing in Britain Archives usually know what they are for. This one does not, not entirely. The National Archives in London holds a scattered set of files documenting Black-led radical and community publishing in Britain between 1817 and 1975, and almost none of it was kept because … Read more
A File Reopened A draft government briefing document sits inside the file that answers CAS-279699. According to The National Archives (TNA), it was never sent to the person it was written for and never finished. It is, by TNA’s own description, a piece of paper that went nowhere. It stays sealed from public view under … Read more
A Request That Went Nowhere in Particular The National Archives’ answer to case CAS-328470 reads like most other entries in its Freedom of Information disclosure log. The request is titled “Loan and Transfer of Records to the Royal Archives,” its status is marked “Resolved,” and the response carries a metadata publication date of May 3, … Read more
Five folders, one afternoon The National Archives’ First World War collection, published August 3, 2026, groups five service files and images under a single heading. WO 339/34889 holds the service record of Reginald St John Beardsworth Battersby, dated 1914. WO 339/106913 holds the service record of J.B. Priestley, dated September 1914. WO 316/24 is a … Read more
Two files, one afternoon The Black Vault, the online archive run by researcher John Greenewald, posted two documents together on February 29, 2024: a 34-page evaluation from the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG), titled “Evaluation of the Screening of Displaced Persons from Afghanistan,” and a separate 23-page file labeled “DoD/IG Communications … Read more
A Public Hearing, After Fifty Years On May 17, 2022, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation held an open hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena, the first of its kind in more than fifty years. Scott Bray, the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, testified alongside Ronald S. Moultrie, the … Read more
