This week we welcome guest author Phillippa Plock, who has been working with Leeds Museums and Galleries on their Wikithon, where they write Wikipedia articles on important Leeds Historical Figures as part of their 200th birthday volunteer project. In this article Phillippa will discuss her two most recent articles on Harris Simrie and Elizabeth Beecroft. …
Category: Guest Post
The Maurice Rosenbaum Letters: A Leeds Connection
This week, we welcome University of Leeds students Amy Clayton and Lucy Slater as guest authors. Amy and Lucy have been investigating a new addition to the Central Library collections – the letters of Maurice Rosenbaum – over the last few months. Here, they explain who Maurice was and his connection to Leeds and Yorkshire. …
Mining Genealogy Gold – A Hidden Gem in Leeds Central Library
This week we welcome guest author and family historian Jane Roberts, who explores how the Leeds Central Library Collection has shed new light on her own family history and the working conditions of children in mines and collieries. As a family historian, I’m always on the look-out for sources which flesh out the lives of…
Hiding in plain sight: my search for the old cinemas of Leeds
This week our guest writer is Dr Laura Ager, Academic researcher and Creative Engagement Officer at the Hyde Park Picture House, who is writing about the history of old cinemas in Leeds. Before the era of the corporate multiplex cinema began, Leeds used to have many different and unique small cinemas. I have read that at…
“Who was David and why should we remember him?”
This week’s article is written by Nina Whitfield, a BA History student at Leeds Beckett University. Nina was one of a student group who visited the Central Library in late 2018 for a workshop utilising books and other resources in the Local and Family History department to research the life and times of David Oluwale……
Tracing the Belgian Refugees
This week we hear from Dr. Philippa Read, Research Fellow in the School of Languages, Culture and Societies at the University of Leeds, on a new family history database from the Universities of Leeds and Leuven… A hundred years ago, approximately 250,000 Belgian men, women and children came to Britain after the invasion and subsequent…
Heritage Open Days: Back-to-Back Houses, Harehills
University of York PhD researcher Joanne Harrison is collaborating with Leeds Central Library’s Local and Family History department and the Compton Centre Community Hub again, to deliver two events during the national Heritage Open Days weekends. She reports here on the tours and exhibition, her research over the last year, and how to get involved…
