Datasets

http://openplaques.org is an open source project (both code and data) has data on over two and a half thousand commemorative plaques, and new plaques are being added regularly. Where available, the data for each plaque includes the:

• Inscription
• Person being commemorated
• Geo location
• Address / country
• Organisation that created the plaque (around 250 so far) 
• Colour
• Roles (e.g. author, inventor, actor, prime minister, namer of clouds etc.)
• Verbs (e.g. lived, worked, died, visited, built, founded) that link the person to the location
• Link to creative commons photo of plaque on Flickr

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ is the UK government's official archive, containing over 1,000 years of history, with detailed guidance to government departments and the public sector on information management and links to other historical archives.