This week in Local and Community History Month we hear from Hannah White, who has creatively re-used some images from our Leodis archive to show contrasts and continuities between Town Street in Armley, then and now… You can read much more about Armley in our mini-series of articles, or explore our Armley research guide to…
Category: Leeds History
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…
Tales from the Horsforth Research Guide
Library and Digital Assistant Jan Pinder has been researching the history of Horsforth in our Central Library collections. This week on the Secret Library we hear some of Jan’s highlights from that work, as well as news of a research guide to aid other researchers into the Horsforth area, part of a series of guides…
Ten years of guest authors!
Over the past ten years the Secret Library Leeds blog has seen a host of guest authors writing about their projects, studies or interests. Here we look back at just a few of them. Guest authors come about in a variety of ways. Sometimes a researcher will approach Leeds Libraries with a query and in…
An American Exchange in Aireborough
This week on the blog Helen Skilbeck recounts a fascinating story about a 1940’s library exchange. Back in 1948 two female librarians – one from Aireborough and one from North Carolina – applied to exchange roles for a year. Margaret Scoffield had been appointed the first full-time professional librarian for Aireborough Libraries in 1942. Virginia…
A Brief History of Leeds #13: Modern Leeds
Part thirteen of a series exploring the history of Leeds, using books and other stock resources held in the Leeds Libraries collections. For all the entries in this series, see our dedicated page. Many of the themes identified at the start of this history – innovation, Leeds’ place in national and international networks of trade…
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…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 