Today we are rejoicing in Local and Family History because the 1921 census is available on Ancestry! Regular readers will know that you can use Ancestry for free at any Leeds Library as part of our digital offering. Here’s some reasons why you should be excited about the 1921 census too. It reflects changes in…
Category: Child Friendly
The eight young Leeds children and their amazing adventure in Switzerland
This week we are delighted to welcome guest author Alwyn Prior, who has an amazing story to tell… My name is Alwyn Prior and I was born in Bramley, Leeds on 28/09/1938 after interviews and medicals I was chosen along with three other boys and four girls all from Leeds to attend the Pestalozzi International…
A Brief Tour of Clarendon Road
This week Librarian Antony Ramm offers a very short tour of Clarendon Road in Little Woodhouse, based on a walk delivered to library staff on Monday November 25 2024. Some of this article and tour is based on information posted in a previous blog post about Little Woodhouse, and relies heavily on details given to…
Black History Month: Leeds United’s first Black footballer
This week we welcome guest author Pete Slater. Pete is one of a small team of volunteers working on a project based on football fandom. He traced the following story during his research using our local newspaper archive, as part of that project work. We publish this piece as part of Black History Month. For…
350 years of worship and rebellion: A timeline of the history of Mill Hill
This week we welcome Leeds Beckett University student Emma Hays, who reports on a recent local history project based on resources in our Local and Family History department…The launch of the accompanying resource is at 1.30pm on October 31 at the Mill Hill Chapel (next to City Square). Mill Hill Chapel was founded in 1674…
Searching for Black History in the Leodis Archive
We mark Black History Month 2024 by welcoming back regular guest author Danny Friar, who has unearthed some fascinating examples of Black History in Leeds in a important piece of research… Searching for local Black history can often be challenging. There’s no easy way to do it. I find a snippet here and a snippet…
Heritage Open Day 2024: What’s in a Name?
To mark the upcoming Heritage Open Day Week (6-15 September 2024), Library and Digital Assistant Becky Bavill brings us some fantastic detective work in our Central Library archives to (re)discover the site of a long-forgotten mansion in the centre of Leeds… Join us on Saturday September 7 in the Central Library’s Local and Family History…
Women’s history month stock display
During February and March we delved deep into the Central Library collections to curate a display highlighting the contributions of women to the fields of science, medicine, health and wellbeing. That display is now reproduced below. Most of the content was created by Library and Digital Assistant Heather Edwards and further information can be found…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 