What Poll Books can tell us about our ancestors in Leeds and the West Riding

This week, as part of Local and Community History Month, we welcome guest author Janice Heppenstall for a fascinating and in-depth look at using electoral results in family history research… Janice will be joining us at the Central Library on Thursday May 11 to deliver a talk based on her family history research. Further information…

Two 19th Century Scoops: Part II – Peterloo, August 1819

This week we hear from Library and Digital Assistant Ruairí Lewis on some fascinating examples of local, Leeds newspapers making their mark on the national stage. On top of our extensive local newspaper collection in the Central Library, Leeds Libraries also have access to the British Newspaper Archive’s 19th Century Newspapers database. This gives library…

Two 19th Century Scoops: Part I – The Spy Oliver

This week we hear from Library and Digital Assistant Ruairí Lewis on some fascinating examples of local, Leeds newspapers making their mark on the national stage. On top of our extensive local newspaper collection in the Central Library, Leeds Libraries also have access to the British Newspaper Archive’s 19th Century Newspapers database. This gives library…

The Chimney Corner: Secret Books from the Secret Library #5

The fifth in a newly-regular series exploring books and other items selected from our vast collections. In this entry Librarian Antony Ramm showcases a wonderful collection of photographs showing Unitarian Churches across Yorkshire in the late 19th-century… This is a really nice volume, a collection of images and historical notes about Unitarian Chapels across Yorkshire….

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…

Woodbine Lizzie

For International Women’s Day 2023 we’re going to delve into the Leodis photographic archive and look at a woman who followed her own path, regardless of social conventions, and while doing so left a mark on the collective memory of Leeds residents. The undated image shows a woman who was once a very familiar character…

I Was Here: Diversity in Georgian Yorkshire

This week we hear from independent researcher Danny Friar, who offers a brilliant and sensitively-researched excavation of the Georgian era, revealing fragments of a hidden, but universal, history… Ten years ago a discussion of the Georgian period may have brought up names such as Lord Horatio Nelson, Captain James Cook, William Wilberforce and Jane Austen….

The Chimney Corner: Secret Books From The Secret Library #2

The second in an irregular (very irregular) series of books and other items selected from our vast collections. In this entry Librarian Antony Ramm takes a look at a rather nice presentation book with some eye-catching illustrations… The book – if we can even call it a book – was produced to commemorate a special…