Searching for Alice Mann

As part of our series for International Women’s Day, librarian Antony Ramm lays out the path that took him to one of his favourite women of Leeds: Alice Mann… I first came across the name of Alice Mann (1791-1865) while reading Derek Fraser’s collection of articles in Volume 53 of the Publications of the Thoresby…

People of Leeds #12: Frances Rushworth

In the first of three special articles to mark our Unfinished Business exhibition focusing on Women in our collections, Antony Ramm looks at a short-but-fascinating story from Leeds’ electoral history. This article is #12 in our People of Leeds series – mini biographies of lesser-known contributors to Leeds’ rich heritage.  The major landmarks and most important individuals…

Maps for Family History

As part of a series examining family history resources for beginners, Librarian Antony Ramm explores the local map collection at Leeds Central Library and online, briefly showing how they can be used to support genealogical research… As well as being seriously fascinating in their own right, maps are one of the most important of what we…

Parish Registers – An Introduction

As part of a series examining family history resources for beginners, librarian Antony Ramm takes an in-depth look at one of the most useful resources for beginning your family history research: Parish Registers. You can find more information in our research guide. An earlier article on this site takes a brief look at some of…

Visitations and Pedigrees

As part of a series examining family history resources for beginners, librarian Antony Ramm explores Visitation records – a largely neglected but extremely worthwhile set of genealogy records from the 16th and 17th-centuries… Family historians will be familiar with the difficulty of tracing ancestries prior to the almost-simultaneous start of Civil Registration and Census records in the…

Keep on Keeping On: Running a Library Department in a Crisis

This week, Antony Ramm, Librarian-Manager for the Local and Family History (LFH) department at Leeds Central Library, explains the steps staff have taken to continue operating a specialist public library department in these unprecedented times… As previously announced on the Secret Library, the Central Library in Leeds shut its doors to staff and the public…

The First Leeds Panto?

To mark the forthcoming Christmas week, Librarian Antony Ramm offers a short investigation into the first pantomime performed in Leeds… In 1986 a reader of the Yorkshire Evening Post asked a simple question: What “records” were consulted for this answer is not made clear, but a previous article on the history of pantomime in Leeds…