Surprisingly few people know that the University Library is also home to the University Archive. From its earliest days as a municipal college of technology, through its polytechnic years, and on to the present day as a leading modern university, the institution that became the University of Portsmouth has been at the heart of the city. Discover our local history, from photographs and architectural plans to course brochures and marketing pamphlets to minute books.

Lauded by LGBTQ+ celebrities from activist Peter Tatchell to author Patrick Gale, the book includes a diverse range of perspectives and topics from a historian’s perspective on the scarcity of recorded LGBTQ+ history to a summary of local newspaper representation of LGBTQ+ issues over the past 120 years, a celebration of the Island’s leading LGBTQ+ heroes and heroines over the past century, as well as critical discussions of the development and impact of the infamous Section 28 and of suicide amongst LGBTQ+ people, pairing factual historical and journalistic research with reflections on personal experience and verbatim oral history extracts from the residents of the Isle of Wight.