Our collections guide Sources for Black and Asian History at the City Of Westminster Archives Centre gives an overview of Black and Asian material held and it can be downloaded below - or printed copies can be bought for £7 from our Local History Shop.

Three classes of material included in the guide are particularly worthy of note and invite further research: Westminster parish registers and records; the Westminster theatre collection; and the deposited records of Westminster institutions, societies and businesses.

The Westminster parish records list over 900 baptisms, marriages, and burials of individuals of African or Asian descent. These are primarily from the eighteenth century but include earlier and later events. Complimenting these are parish poor law and petty session records relating to Black and Asian people. The poor law settlement examinations are especially strong and informative source, providing stark biographies of those examined.

The Theatre Collection contains several thousand playbills and other ephemera relating to the West End and other London Theatres. Although some seventeenth , and more eighteenth century playbills are represented, the collection is mainly comprised of nineteenth century programmes and playbills and twentieth century programmes. References to and depictions of non-European peoples are commonplace in the nineteenth century playbills - references and depictions which expansively evidence prejudice and racism - but on occasions too celebrating Black and Asian talent and achievement. The theatre collection also illustrates opinions and beliefs which informed British Imperialism.