This week, Collections Manager Rhian Isaac explores the importance and the usefulness of stories from the Yorkshire Star Chamber in the Tudor era… The lives and exploits of the Tudor monarchs and nobility are well known and are often the subjects of films and TV shows but finding out about how every day people lived…
Category: Historical Figures
A Brief History of Leeds Antiquarians: Part I
This week, Librarian Antony Ramm gives the first part in a brief history of Antiquarians in Leeds, as told using books, manuscripts and other treasures held at the Central Library. You can find future instalments elsewhere on this blog, as well as a research guide detailing the relevant library collections available. Hans Sloane (1660 – 1753)…
Exploring Emily Brontë
Librarian Antony Ramm highlights some books that take an oblique look at the Emily Brontë story… Last Monday marked the 200th-anniversary of Emily Brontë’s birth, and there have been a wide range of articles in the local, national, specialist and social media describing and analysing both Emily’s life and her masterpiece: the novel Wuthering Heights (1847)….
When Football Did Come Home
Librarian Antony Ramm looks at a Central Library book of autographs that record the still-unrepeated success of 1966… So, in the end, it didn’t come home – and I think most of us knew it wouldn’t. But – as most of us do know – it did indeed come home in July of 1966, when…
The Life of Patric Knowles
University of Huddersfield history student and library volunteer Haaris Mahmood looks back over the life of a legendary but lesser-known Hollywood star who began life in Horsforth. The city of Leeds has been home to many advancements in the world of filmmaking; both technically and in talent, being the birth place of a number of…
William Boyne and the Voices of History
Librarian Antony Ramm takes a look at the deep history behind the creation of a celebrated Leeds antiquarian “masterpiece”. This article has been written to accompany the publication of a new Research Guide at the Central Library, exploring our Leeds Antiquarian Collection… William Boyne was born in Leeds around 1814, to Thomas Boyne, a successful local…
Oliver Cromwell and the First World War
Following last week’s look at our latest Speed-dating our Library Treasures event, Josh Flint from the Local and Family History department explains his fascination with Captain P.A. Charrier’s early 20th-century book on Oliver Cromwell… The Campaigns of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War: 1642- 1649, was written by Captain P. A. Charrier in 1906. Charrier,…
People of Leeds #1: Sam, the Newsman
The first in an occasional series looking at forgotten contributors to the history of Leeds. This week, Librarian Antony Ramm tells the story of 19th-century newsagent Samuel Schofield, better known to contemporaries as ‘Sam, the Newsman’… There was once a time – not so very long ago – when visitors to the centre of Leeds…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 