This week on the Secret Library Leeds, librarian Antony Ramm brings you some festive joy with a sequel to an article originally published in 2017… We sometimes like to say that one of the values of the Secret Library Leeds website is that the articles and the content remain permanently out there on the information…
Category: Entertainment
Working on the Spark Collection: a history about the Leeds Triennial Musical Festival in early years
Following Lauren Stead’s article in May, we now welcome MA student Xuan Li for a further exploration of the Central Library’s Spark Collection… Over the past few months, I’ve had the chance to work on a short-term archive project at Leeds Central Library, exploring the fascinating Spark Collection. This archive is named after Frederick R….
Thorne’s of Leeds: A Research Jigsaw
This week we’re delighted to publish the first in a series of guest posts for Local and Community History Month. Today, we hear from researcher Andrew Littlewood on his exploration of resources in our Local and Family History department, in his search for information on Henry Thorne & Co. Ltd… You can find out more…
Dancing into History
We hear from Library and Digital Assistant Becky Bavill this week, who brings us a fantastic piece that is combines genealogy with a true crime twist… Arthur Morris, son of Samuel and Harriet was born in 1859. He had 5 siblings. Although the 1881 census had him working alongside his father in the family boot…
Leeds Gig Heritage
As paper ticket transactions become a thing of the past, the Leeds Local Studies library is creating a living record of Leeds gig history. Anyone with an old ticket stub or a memory of a past Leeds gig can contribute to the collection, and with no end date, this is a collection of tickets and…
Professional Orchestras in Leeds
This week guest author, Geoffrey Mogridge, tells us about the formation of professional orchestras in Leeds. In 1902 Herbert Fricker, Leeds City Organist, inaugurated a series of ‘Saturday Evening Free concerts’ in which several local organisations, choral and orchestral were invited to assist. 850 seats were reserved at prices of 1/-, 6d and 3d. In…
The Alternative Heritage of Leeds
This week we welcome guest blogger, Festival of Gothica, who tell us about a new project working jointly with Leeds Libraries. Leeds has a rich alternative heritage but was influential in birthing the goth subculture as we know it today. Other cities celebrate their musical history and shape their events and tourism around it, Liverpool…
A Gledhow Military Hospital Christmas
Day 4 of our Advent Calendar brings us to the Christmas Celebrations at Gledhow Military Hospital. During the First World War, Gledhow Hall was offered for use as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) hospital and run by the British Red Cross. This first image from 1917 shows one of the small huts in the grounds…
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