Leeds Beckett Archive and Special Collections
The Archive and Special Collections at Leeds Beckett University are held at the Headingley Library. They include an archive of material relating to the history of the University, as well as collections such as the archive of West Yorkshire Society of Architects Library and the Tom Pevsner Collection. Some material and images are also available online.
Interactive map created by students from Leeds Beckett University’s Public History Project module, detailing different commemorative sites in the city. Each statue, monument and mural has a description explaining who is being commemorated and why. You can read more about the project here. Members of the public who know of monuments or murals that are not currently listed are also encouraged to use an online form so that the map can be added to over time.
Leodis: a photographic archive of Leeds
Leodis is an online photographic archive containing over 59,000 images of Leeds, old and new. It is managed by the Leeds Library and Information Service. As well as photos there are also 5,500 playbills from the library collections offering a unique view of theatre life in Leeds from 1781 to the 1990s.
Information and images on the history of Leeds, put together by the Leeds Library and Information Services. Includes sections on industrial Leeds and the waterfront.
Discussion forum dedicated to investigating mysterious or unusual aspects of the built environment of Leeds.
A really useful collection of videos that you can use for local historical / contextual research. The Yorkshire Film Archive is a registered charity which finds, preserves and provides public access to moving image made in or about the Yorkshire and the North East of England.
This collection, created by RLUK (Research Libraries UK), contains the most significant British pamphlets from the 19th century held in UK research libraries. Pamphlets were an important means of public debate, covering the key political, social, technological, and environmental issues of their day.
Gives access to the enormous range of nineteenth-century periodical literature an invaluable resource, of interest to historians and students of nineteenth-century literature and culture, empire, feminism, the history of the book, the creative and performing arts, sport and leisure, science and medicine, the professions, in short, of all aspects of nineteenth-century life that the press encompassed.
Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars, researchers, and students at the college and university level. A multi-disciplinary resource, collections cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Particular strengths include U.S. foreign policy; U.S. civil rights; global affairs and colonial studies; and modern history.
Digitised versions of more than 65,000 out-of-copyright editions from the 19th century, spanning the years 1789-1914. A wide range of subject areas are covered, including philosophy, history, poetry and literature.
This database is hosted on the JISC Historical Texts platform.
Listen to a selection from the British Library’s extensive collections of unique sound recordings, which come from all over the world and cover the entire range of recorded sound: music, drama and literature, oral history, wildlife and environmental sounds.
To access this resource, click on log in where it says Please log in via your home organisation, choose Leeds Beckett University from the drop down list and click on Select.
Early European Books provides scholars with new ways of accessing and exploring all works printed in Europe before 1701, drawing together a diverse array of printed sources, regardless of language, as well as works published further afield. Developed and produced in close collaboration with scholars, rare book librarians, bibliographers, and other experts from the library world, this resource offers full-colour, high-resolution facsimile images of some of the world's most significant collections of early printed books in Europe.
Provides access to literary manuscripts, rare printed works, and personal papers of a range of leading literary figures in British and American literature , as well as unique access to a rare and obscure literary texts and genres.
A fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 344 full text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources.
Offers access to one of the most important archives for the study of Social History in the modern era. This digital project is a multi-faceted resource, offering integrated access to the new online material, existing microfilm series, and the Mass-Observation Archive itself, allowing the user options to search across the entire Archive or by material available digitally.
Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK. This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation between 1980 and 2010 and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers.
Offers access to rare literary sources related to William Wordsworth and the Romantic period. The collection offers an insight into the working methods of the poet and the wider social, political and natural environment that shaped much of his work and that of his contemporaries. The collection also makes available the writings of Dorothy Wordsworth through her Grasmere Journals, Alfoxden diary and travel journals as well as verse manuscripts and correspondence from leading authors of the Romantic period such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey. Also included are over 2,500 fine art pieces from the Wordsworth Trust’s fine art collection.
In this databases you can search and view the collection of over 66,000 digitised European medical publications from the nineteenth century. The subject areas covered include topics such as consumer health, sport and fitness, food and nutrition as well as medicine and medical practices.
Research tool allowing researchers to access primary material depicting key elements of nineteenth century popular culture, including spiritualism in Victorian Britain, the circus, pleasure gardens, advertising and music hall. Primary material in the collection includes books, pamphlets, journals, posters, photographs, prints, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, theatre tickets, architectural design plans, scripts, programmes and playbills.
Allows you to conduct historical research across multiple news sources, including the Daily Mail Historical Archive and the Times Digital Archive. Includes a term frequency option, so you can find out how often a specific word or phrase appears over time - ideal if you want to track the development of ideas in various historical contexts.
You can also find a list of our individual newspaper archives on the News Resources page here which include:
Provides access to historical maps and map data of Great Britain. Data is available either to download, to use with appropriate software such as geographical information systems (GIS) or computer-aided design (CAD), or as online maps.
Sessional papers including page images and searchable full text for each paper, along with detailed indexing. Collections for the 18th, 19th & 20th Centuries and Hansard 1803-2005 are available.
Core records of the British Cabinet from 1915 to 1982 have been digitised, and their full text is searchable online from these web pages.
House of Commons Publications and Papers
Current information from both Houses, previous Hansard debates and latest select committee reports. Explore research from the parliamentary libraries and find out how to access the archives.
UK legislation from 1267-present. Also includes Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly legislation, and legislation originating from the EU.
Extensive website from the National Archives, including their digitised downloadable records. Includes detailed research guides to help you research people, places and subjects.
National Archives guide that explains how to access the historical censuses from 1841 to 1921 online.
Great Britain Historical Database Online Documentation
A large integrated database of geographically-located historical statistics for Great Britain, mainly drawn from the period 1851-1939.
Histpop - The Online Historical Population Reports Website
The Online Historical Population Reports (OHPR) collection provides online access to the complete British population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1937.
A Vision of Britain Through Time
Created by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project based in the Department of Geography of the University of Portsmouth, includes maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions.
A comprehensive resource funded by the ESRC to support researchers, teachers and policymakers who depend on high-quality social and economic data. It contains single point of access to a wide range of secondary data including large-scale government surveys, international macrodata, business microdata, qualitative studies and census data from 1971 to 2011.
British Library Online Resources
Extensive collection of primary sources and analysis from the British Library, covering topics such as Asians in Britain, Abolition, Victorian Britain, Votes for Women, World War One.
British Political Speech Archive
An archive of speeches given by Conservative, Labour and Liberal/Liberal Democrat Party leaders going back to 1895.
Created by the Library of Congress, this provides access to information about historic US newspapers and selected digitized newspaper pages.
Local History Online in England and Wales
A spreadsheet created by historian Sharon Howard listing where to find hundreds of free PDFs of source editions and other volumes produced by local history societies.
Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (NCSE)
Free, online edition of six nineteenth-century periodicals and newspapers. Titles are: Monthly Repository (1806-1837) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Northern Star (1838-1852), Leader (1850-1860), English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Tomahawk (1867-1870), Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890).
This website reproduces as high-resolution colour images every page of the surviving volumes of Queen Victoria's journals. Each page has also been transcribed, allowing for the journals to be searched. A number of specially-commissioned essays have also been included in this resource, to further support the study and understanding of Queen Victoria and her world.
