WITH three months to go until the general election, the campaign trail is hotting up and election literature is being produced thick and fast. We’d like to ask your readers not to throw away anything they receive, but to send it to us for an archive which is helping to capture Britain’s political history.

Here at the University of Bristol’s Special Collections Library, we hold an extensive archive of over 30,000 election addresses for every British general election since 1892. We believe it’s the biggest of its kind in the UK, with literature from all the prominent politicians of the 20th Century.

We’re looking for election addresses, manifestos, and related publicity from any constituency and party to help researchers in the future get a clear picture of how the general election of 2015 was fought, capturing which issues were of interest to the electorate and candidates.

With the public’s assistance, we hope to collect a broad range of publicity for the upcoming general election on May 7. We cover all 650 seats in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales so need help from far and wide. If you feel able to help, please do donate any election material you come across rather than throwing it away.

Please send election addresses, manifestos, and related publicity from any constituency and party to:

Special Collections

Arts and Social Sciences Library

University of Bristol

Tyndall Avenue

Bristol

BS8 1TJ

Hannah Lowery

Archivist in the Special Collections Library at the University of Bristol