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…
Tag: Leeds Mercury
Collingham Pageants
This week we hear from Library Officer Karen Downham, who explores a fascinating new addition to our Leodis archive of historic Leeds images… The Local & Family History Library often takes donations of photographs to go onto the Leodis online photographic archive (www.leodis.net), and as often happens when researching the background to images, the trail…
Fake News 21st August 1934
Fake News is a new project, by Tim Knight, which uses Local and Family History’s newspaper archive to publish a fictional front page every month. Curated from cuttings of The Yorkshire Post and The Yorkshire Evening Post—Leeds’ oldest continuous newspaper—Fake News will explore the goings-on, mishaps and miscellany of Yorkshire through the ages. Today’s edition, a…
Fake News 21st July 1924
Fake News is a new project, by Tim Knight, which uses Local and Family History’s newspaper archive to publish a fictional front page every month. Curated from cuttings of The Yorkshire Post and The Yorkshire Evening Post—Leeds’ oldest continuous newspaper—Fake News will explore the goings-on, mishaps and miscellany of Yorkshire through the ages. Today’s edition, hot…
Fake News 13th June 1914
Fake News is a new project, by Tim Knight, which uses Local and Family History’s newspaper archive to publish a fictional front page every month. Curated from cuttings of The Yorkshire Post and The Yorkshire Evening Post—Leeds’ oldest continuous newspaper—Fake News will explore the goings-on, mishaps and miscellany of Yorkshire through the ages. Today’s edition, late…
Oswald Mosley and Leeds – The Battle of Holbeck Moor 27th September 1936
This week Josh Flint uses the collection in the Local and Family History Department to examine Oswald Mosley and Fascism in Leeds during 1936. The Battle of Holbeck Moor, 27th September 1936 saw the British Union of Fascists under the leadership of Oswald Mosley march from Calverley Street, in the centre of Leeds, to Holbeck…
Nineteenth Century Politics – The Leeds Parliamentary Election of 1868
This week we hear from Josh Flint of the Local and Family History Department, who will look at the Parliamentary Election held on the 17th November 1868. The 1868 election in Leeds was fought between two Liberal candidates Edward Baines Jr and Robert Meek Carter; an Independent Liberal Sir Andrew Fairbairn and two Conservatives Admiral…
Chilling Memories
Temperatures may have improved a little recently but last week’s cold snap was nothing compared to the icy conditions experienced by Leeds in times past. Local history librarian Ross Horsley looks back on some of the city’s cruelest winters… “The Wharfe and the Aire are frozen to a depth capable of bearing anything,” reported the Leeds Mercury in…