To mark the refurbishment of Morley Library as Morley Community Hub, Assistant Community Librarian, Helen Thomson, presents a brief history of the Saint Mary’s-in-the-Wood Church of Morley. This article is based on a local history zine that Helen has previously created – that zine is reproduced below, along with some photographs of the Church, as…
Category: Social History
The Deaf Community of Leeds: A Partial History
This week on the Secret Library, Librarian Antony Ramm looks at books or other printed objects held at the Central Library, all highlighting different aspects of the Leeds deaf community’s story. The early 19th-century As seen in reports held at the Central Library, children Leeds were pupils at the Yorkshire Institution for Deaf and Dumb Children…
Yorkshire Battles: Battle of Wakefield, 1460
This week Josh Flint from the Local and Family History Department will be using the new Research Guide on Yorkshire Battles to examine the fascinating Battle of Wakefield in 1460 which saw the death of Richard, Duke of York and has been argued to have changed the course of English History while also highlighting the exceptional items…
Marathon Running in Leeds: The History of the Leeds Marathon
by Karen Downham, Local & Family History Library After the amazing feat of distance runner Eliud Kipchoge, breaking the world record for the marathon in a time of 2 hours, 1 minute, and 39 seconds, at the Berlin Marathon earlier this year, on 16th September, and as runners thoughts start to turn to training for…
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… *Please note the Tracing the Belgian Refugees database is currently offline. It is hoped that it will be accessible…
Leeds in the First World War: New Leodis Collection
To commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War, it seems a good time to delve into our Leodis photographic archive to see how Leeds fared during this period. The image below shows a recruiting tram for the Leeds Pals, a volunteer battalion from the business and professional communities of the city,…
A Partial History of Leeds Central Library
This last Wednesday, to mark National Libraries Week, four of our Local and Family History team, plus one intrepid volunteer, delivered a talk offering a brief history of Leeds Central Library, primarily derived from material found in several volumes of news-cuttings covering public libraries in Leeds. So, this week on the Secret Library we offer…
Kelly – Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire
We believe this copy of the 1912 Kelly’s Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire to be our longest single-volume book. The 1912 Kelly’s Directory is just one in a large collection of such trade directories that the Local and Family History department holds – primarily for Leeds, but also covering the wider West Riding…
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