This week on the Secret Library we are delighted to hear once again from Andy Armstrong, one of our heritage volunteers, on a significant piece of cataloguing work we’ve asked them to help us with. You can find more articles about housing in Leeds elsewhere on the blog… Hi. My name’s Andy Armstrong and I…
Category: Social History
Poor Laws, Workhouses to ‘Food Bank Britain’: a brief overview of how poverty has been understood and addressed from Pre-Modern to contemporary Britain
This week we welcome University of Leeds student Emily O’Riley. Having completed a yearlong research project alongside the Thackray Museum of Medicine, who provided 360 biographies of Workhouse inmates based on 1881 census data, Emily reflects on the Victorian Workhouse and what it can tell us about British society. The first thing we learnt about…
190 Years Celebrating Emancipation
We welcome back researcher Danny Friar this week, to mark a very important anniversary: 190 years since the emancipation of enslaved people in the British Caribbean colonies. After reading Danny’s article, be sure to catch the Beyond the Bassline: 500 years of Black British Music exhibition currently on display at the Reginald Centre. On the…
Great War Territorial Volunteer – Frederick Luff
The third and final post in Library and Digital Assistant Becky Bavill’s series exploring the lives and careers of some Leeds soldiers during World War I. You can see all the articles in this series by clicking here, or read the original article that sparked this research here. Fred Luff is mentioned in the diary…
Great War Territorial Volunteer – Eric Stowell
We welcome Library and Digital Assistant Becky Bavill back to the Secret Library Leeds this week, for another short biography of a Leeds soldier in World War I. Keep a look out for one more article in this series coming soon… Eric Stowell is mentioned in the diary of William Smith. I found two links…
2LS calling: When the Wireless Came to Leeds
This week we hear from Tony Scaife, regular guest author on the Secret Library Leeds, who explores the anniversary of a little-known but hugely important moment in the history of technology, media and broadcasting in Leeds… Monday July 8, 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of public wireless (radio) broadcasting in Leeds. The Local and Family…
Leeds veterans of the American Civil War (Part 2)
This week we welcome back Library and Digital Assistant Joey Talbot for the second part of his illuminating account of American Civil War veterans buried in Leeds… In the previous post, I told of how I was put onto the trail of Leeds veterans of the American Civil War after an email from Andrew Hopkinson…
Great War Territorial Volunteer – Percy Longfield
We welcome Library and Digital Assistant Becky Bavill this week on the Secret Library Leeds, who follows up her superb three-part investigation of a First World War diary with a short biography of another Leeds soldier of the time. Keep a look out for two more articles in this series coming soon… Percy Longfield is…
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