LGBT+ Leeds: A Brief History in Photographs

A heritage project called West Yorkshire Queer Stories recently spent two years interviewing LGBT+ people across the region in order to find out more about local queer history. The result is a new website packed with information and anecdotes reaching back to the 1950s, at wyqs.co.uk. Project worker Ross Horsley has picked out some of…

Family History Resources: Military Records

This week on the Secret Library we hear from Local and Family History’s Josh Flint, who will be exploring the incredibly useful family history resource, military service records. This article will explore what military service records are, how to access them and how they can be useful for your own family history research. Military personnel records…

The Theatrical Life of Tate Wilkinson

On the Secret Library this week we have a article from guest writer Dominique Trigg, the creator of Some Sources Say, who has written about the fascinating  life of Tate Wilkinson, an Eighteenth Century pioneer of Leeds Theatre. If you would like to read more excellent articles from Dominique then you should visit Some Sources…

Harry Croft Scrapbook

This week on the Secret Library, we hear from Library Officer Karen Downham, on a fascinating piece of Leeds social history – with an intriguing connection to a Second World War hero… For the last couple of months I have been tackling a project on the Scrapbook of Harry Croft, Secretary of Leeds St Mark’s…

Family History Resources: Historical Trade Directories

This week on the Secret Library we hear from Local and Family History’s Josh Flint, who will be exploring the excellent family history resource, historical trade directories. This article will help family history researchers understand what trade directories are, how they can be useful for family history research and finally where to find them. This…

Charles Ward VC: A Leeds Hero

This week on the Secret Library we are delighted to hear from Mick Ward, who gives us the fascinating and poignant story of his grandfather, Charles Ward: his military life in The Boer War, and First World War and the impact of those conflicts on him personally. This article is #20 in our People of…

Wormald’s Yard, Commercial Court and Lower Briggate

On the Secret Library this week, we hear from Library Officer Karen Downham about another project on our Leodis archive of historical Leeds photos… I have recently been indexing for the Leodis website a set of photographs from the area on the eastern side of Briggate, to the south of Boar Lane, which had a…