Henry Cole's Rat Soft Toy

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Henry our inquisitive soft toy rat is a much more well behaved and cuddly souvenir to take home. With bespoke card label tag featuring The National Archives logo and the story of t he rat on the reverse. In the 1830's, Henry Cole, shocked at the poor condition of the country's most important documents pioneered the reform of what became known as the Public Record Office - now The National Archives. He had found a dead mummified rat, with a stomach full of chewed documents among the documents and used this rat as evidence for the poor condition of the records, the very same rat can still be viewed in the collection of The National Archives today. Dimensions: 15cms high. Show more