by Nick Tasker, PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Leeds During pleasant afternoons in Leeds Central Library I have been discovering a story of upward social mobility in Victorian Leeds. It’s also the story of my front room. I recently moved into a new place in Headingley. It’s in a large Victorian house…
When the Robots Came to Leeds
Heritage volunteer and guest blogger Tony Scaife looks back to 1920s Leeds, when the new word ‘robot’ had a somewhat different meaning… The robot army arrived in Leeds on Friday 16 March 1928. Readers will have to judge for themselves whether Councillor Turtington and the other members of the Leeds Highways Committee were prescient, deluded or…
‘Half a cup of cream which nobody else seemed to want’: The American Diary of a Leeds Librarian
Guest blogger Val Hewson is a researcher for Reading Sheffield, an oral history project about popular reading in the mid-20th century. This has led her to research library services in Sheffield and elsewhere. In the Leeds Local and Family History Library, she read a diary belonging to F.G.B. Hutchings, Chief Librarian of Leeds between 1946…
Read More: American Politics and Elections
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library This is an entry in our Read More series. These are ‘long-form’ articles, where staff offer a curated and detailed look at areas of our book collections, usually based around a specific theme or subject. These posts aim to guide the interested reader through to those books that offer…
Exploring Lost Expeditions in the Collections at Leeds Central Library: A Multi-Sensory Storytelling Experience
by Antony Ramm, Rhian Isaac and Ross Horsley, Central Library Thousands of people visited Leeds Central Library during this year’s Light Night celebrations and over two hundred of those experienced our interactive exhibition – or, as we thought of it: a multi-sensory storytelling experience – dedicated to four stories of loss and obsession in 19th and 20th-century exploration,…
Stories, Songs and Proclamations
By Karen Downham, Local & Family History Library This week in the blog we will be looking at Broadsides, and exploring some of those in the Local & Family History Collection. A broadside, in its simplest definition, is a sheet of paper printed only on one side. They were often posters announcing events, proclamations, and advertisements,…
Illuminating the Rich History of “Light Night” in Leeds
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library No doubt most readers of our blog will be spending this evening enjoying one of the many wonderful art events happening around the city centre as part of the annual Light Night celebrations. And most readers will probably already be aware of how those celebrations started –…
Theatres Through Time: Tate Wilkinson
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library Leeds has a long and rich theatrical history, stretching back to at least 1722, when Ralph Thoresby noted, in his diary – and with some disapproval! – the appearance of a group of players in the town. The collections and books available in our Local and…
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