Guildhall Library in the City of London created an open and accessible space that got children out of the classroom and gave them hands-on experience of history.

The Guildhall Library in the City of London launched a series of school workshops to encourage students to learn more about their local history and the Great Plague of 1666.

90 school children participated in interactive workshops that showcased original historical artefacts and texts.

The free workshops consisted of discussion and creative writing, including a slideshow and a plague game. Children wrote their own plague letters inspired by what they had learned.

Libraries’ collections are often treasure troves of local history, and librarians are the stewards of these historical assets, which they can share with their communities.

The initiative brought often-hidden items into the daylight for local children, including original Bills of Mortality, records from the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks, broadsides describing cures for the plague, orders and regulations implemented by the City authorities to control spread of infection as well as contemporary accounts of the Great Plague.

The workshops contextualised historical events and texts and brought in analysis of evidence and statistics and compared historical accounts of the plague with the children’s own experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Writing to someone about the plague because it was so fun. I’d like to come again,” wrote one of the participants.