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…
Category: Yorkshire History
The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal
This week librarian, Helen Skilbeck, takes a closer look at one of the printed and online resources available to Leeds library users. The Yorkshire Archaeological Society (YAS) began in 1863 – their aim was “the examination, preservation and illustration of the History, Architecture, Antiquities, Manners, Customs, Arts and Traditions of the county of York…”. To…
The Chimney Corner: Secret Books from the Secret Library #5
The fifth in a newly-regular series exploring books and other items selected from our vast collections. In this entry Librarian Antony Ramm showcases a wonderful collection of photographs showing Unitarian Churches across Yorkshire in the late 19th-century… This is a really nice volume, a collection of images and historical notes about Unitarian Chapels across Yorkshire….
I Was Here: Diversity in Georgian Yorkshire
This week we hear from independent researcher Danny Friar, who offers a brilliant and sensitively-researched excavation of the Georgian era, revealing fragments of a hidden, but universal, history… Ten years ago a discussion of the Georgian period may have brought up names such as Lord Horatio Nelson, Captain James Cook, William Wilberforce and Jane Austen….
The Chimney Corner: Secret Books from the Secret Library #4
The fourth in a newly-regular series exploring books and other items selected from our vast collections. In this entry Librarian Antony Ramm is looking at the rather odd requirements of an 18th-century Lord Mayor in Yorkshire… Before discussing the book in question this week, it’s probably worth saying a little bit about how we’re choosing…
The Chimney Corner: Secret Books from the Secret Library #3
The third in a newly-regular series looking at books and other items randomly selected from our vast collections. In this entry Librarian Antony Ramm takes a look at an obscure (to us) religious manuscript… The first thing to say about today’s entry – the enigmatically-titled Manuscript – is the sheer solidity of its binding. And…
Slavery in Yorkshire
This week on the blog we hear from Library Officer Ruairí Lewis about a heated debate between two leading local men in the early 19th-century… In 1830, the ‘Tory Radical’ Richard Oastler sent an open letter to the Leeds Mercury, owned and edited by prominent Leeds liberal Edward Baines (1774-1848), entitled ‘Slavery in Yorkshire’. Oastler…
The Public Benefit Boot Company
This week we welcome guest blogger Dave Bean, who has spent years researching and writing about the Public Benefit Boot Company, which had Northern and Southern divisions. He has recently donated his collection to Leeds Central Library and it can be found in the Local and Family History Library. Here he tells us about the…
