Antony Ramm, part of the Librarian team in the Local and Family History department reports on a fascinating talk recently given at the Central Library. Over 50 people attended the latest in our Lunchtime Talk series, when we welcomed Professor Laurence Brockliss of the University of Oxford, who introduced our audience to a major research…
Tag: Antony Ramm
Methodism in Leeds: A Manuscript History
Local history librarian, Antony Ramm, takes a look at a Central Library treasure: manuscript notebooks that provide an insight into the early history of Methodism in Leeds. Our Central Library recently played host to an exhibition of manuscripts by the unjustly-forgotten Schoolmaster and Antiquarian, Thomas Wilson. As part of that display, our Librarians hoped to…
Tales from Thomas Wilson: Hans Sloane, Ralph Thoresby and the British Museum
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library A new book explores the life and work of Hans Sloane, the 17th and 18th-century Antiquarian, collector and Gentleman scholar. Sloane’s collections were so extensive and unique that they formed the basis of the British Museum on his death in 1753. While Leeds had to wait…
Letters From the Past
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library While researching upcoming events on the life and career of the 18th-century Leeds Schoolmaster and Antiquarian, Thomas Wilson, we were directed by the ‘manuscripts’ section of the card catalogue in our Local and Family History department toward a very-intriguing collection of letters: The particular interest…
A Snapshot of Leeds on June 3, 1917
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library Tomorrow will mark a century since a nationally significant, but oddly little-known, event in the history of Leeds: the 1917 Peace Convention at the Coliseum. This “saw 3,500 people from across Britain gather at the Leeds Coliseum (now the O2 Academy) in solidarity with the February…
New Addition to our Collections: Samuel Marsden
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library The broad outline of Samuel Marsden‘s life and works are well-known: born Farsley, 1764, Samuel emigrated to the Australian colonies in 1793 after accepting an appointment as assistant to the Chaplain of New South Wales. There he took up residence at Parramatta, where he had charge…
Reading Around the Histories of Leeds
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library “In a nutshell, historiography is the history of history” – and because everything has a history (both objectively and subjectively), everything also has a history of those histories: that is, a historiography. Leeds is no different. In fact, in some ways, Leeds is more blessed than many other…
“We Smile”: A Curious Donation of Photographs
by Antony Ramm, Local and Family History, Central Library We recently received a new addition to our collections: a photograph album featuring images of holidays in the North of England during 1920 and 1921. The album was donated to us in the hope we could identify the people depicted in the photos and then –…
