This year to celebrate International Women’s Day, Library and Digital Assistant Alexandra Brummitt takes a closer look at the lives and works of some lesser-known feminist pioneers that lived in Leeds. International Women’s Day is held on March 8th every year and is a global celebration of the social, economic and political achievements of women….
Category: Social History
The 1921 census is now on Ancestry
Today we are rejoicing in Local and Family History because the 1921 census is available on Ancestry! Regular readers will know that you can use Ancestry for free at any Leeds Library as part of our digital offering. Here’s some reasons why you should be excited about the 1921 census too. It reflects changes in…
The eight young Leeds children and their amazing adventure in Switzerland
This week we are delighted to welcome guest author Alwyn Prior, who has an amazing story to tell… My name is Alwyn Prior and I was born in Bramley, Leeds on 28/09/1938 after interviews and medicals I was chosen along with three other boys and four girls all from Leeds to attend the Pestalozzi International…
The Gledhow Hall Scrapbook: A Library Treasure
This week we welcome Library and Digital Assistant Sue Stepan for an in-depth look at one of the Central Library’s real treasures – the Gledhow Hall Scrapbook. Sue also reveals a new resource that will prove beneficial to researchers of soldiers and medical staff involved in World War I. Do you have an ancestor or…
A Brief Tour of Clarendon Road
This week Librarian Antony Ramm offers a very short tour of Clarendon Road in Little Woodhouse, based on a walk delivered to library staff on Monday November 25 2024. Some of this article and tour is based on information posted in a previous blog post about Little Woodhouse, and relies heavily on details given to…
Black History Month: Leeds United’s first Black footballer
This week we welcome guest author Pete Slater. Pete is one of a small team of volunteers working on a project based on football fandom. He traced the following story during his research using our local newspaper archive, as part of that project work. We publish this piece as part of Black History Month. For…
Searching for Black History in the Leodis Archive
We mark Black History Month 2024 by welcoming back regular guest author Danny Friar, who has unearthed some fascinating examples of Black History in Leeds in a important piece of research… Searching for local Black history can often be challenging. There’s no easy way to do it. I find a snippet here and a snippet…
It Could Happen to You: The Mystery of the “Metcalfe Millions”
This week the staff in our Local and Family History department bring us a wonderful story sourced from a recent customer enquiry and some dogged detective work in our resources… One of the joys of working in the Local and Family History department are the occasionally offbeat enquiries we get, and the many wide and…
The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog 