THE FIFE Archive Centre in Markinch is holding a Drop In Day on Wednesday, October 31 as part of the national Archives Awareness Campaign.

Freedom And Liberty will be the theme, and there will be a whole host of displays to investigate.

Fife Libraries has put together a display about David Spens, the Wemyss slave.

Dr David Dalrymple of Lindifferen in Fife, bought a slave in Grenada for £30, naming him Black Tom and bringing him to Fife when he returned home in 1768.

It was said that colliers in the area contributed to a collection of £16 nine shillings and eightpence to free David Spens.

Many of the miners in those days were bound to the collieries for life as can be seen in the exhibition of the Rothes Papers, documents relating to the Leslie family of Leslie House, which include wage books and other records concerning the management of the family’s coal mines at Cadham, Cluny and Strathore between 1680 and 1750.

There is a letter asking William Hastie if he was satisfied to serve the Earl of Rothes as his bound collier and a note on the method to make James Cairns a free man. Another letter contains directions for the coalworks, including how to deal with escaped colliers.

From the old Kirkcaldy Mail newspaper, details of the suffragette movement in Fife between 1906 and 1918 can be read. “Women Suffragettes in East Fife,” “Uproarious Scenes,” “Suffragette Outrage at St Andrews,” “Explosion Caused by Suffragettes” and “No Vote for Women, Leven” are just some of the headlines from the time.

From the police conviction book, read about the crimes and punishment of suffragette Margaret Morrison alias Ethel Moorhead, who broke a case at the Wallace Monument in 1912. Her punishment was £2 or seven days’ imprisonment.

The Drop-in Day at the archive centre in Carleton House on the Haig Business Park runs from 10am to 5pm and staff will be hand to help with local history or family history research.