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…
Category: Social History
Claud Frankland – Leeds Climbing Pioneer
“…Never a cloud of the many that are,That form and threaten and roll and dip,Never a cloud had risen to mar,The lovely radiance of comradeship…” (from On Great Gable, by Mabel Barker, 1927) This week, as the outdoor climbing season blossoms and Banff Mountain Film Festival comes to Leeds on April 30, Library and Digital…
Leeds and the Green Bin
To mark Earth Day 2024 we welcome Dr. Henry Irving from Leeds Beckett University, who follows a popular talk given at the Central Library last week with an article exploring the surprising recent history of waste and bins in Leeds… Update: Dr Irving’s talk is now available to view on YouTube If I asked you…
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…
I Was Here: Diversity In Medieval Yorkshire
This week we welcome back Danny Friar, one of our most popular guest authors, who offers a sequel to his important previous work looking at hidden, underwritten and marginalised histories in Georgian Yorkshire… It has been around a year since I last contributed as a guest author on the Secret Library Leeds blog so I…
The Mystery of the Missing Author (s)
This week we hear from Becky Bavill, Library and Digital Assistant, who brings us a quick, but perplexing and intriguing, look at the mystery of a Leeds author of romantic fiction… You can hear much more about the broader history of romantic fiction in an upcoming talk, taking place at the Central Library on the…
Mary Wollstonecraft – the Mother of Modern Feminism.
This week, to celebrate International Women’s Day, Library and Digital Assistant Alexandra Brummitt, looks at the works and life of the first British feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft. Looking at Wollstonecraft’s most famous work, she discusses how this work influenced the suffrage movement and generations of feminists. When thinking of the suffrage movement at the turn of…
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