Primary sources for humanities: United Kingdom

See: Nineteenth century collections online. Asia and the West

Bristol has a substantial collection of 19th century pamphlets, including the National Liberal Club collection, with pamphlets from the libraries of Charles Bradlaugh, John Noble, the Liberation Society, the Land Nationalisation Society, the Cobden Club, and others. Bristol's collection is especially strong on 19th century commerce, economics, finance, politics, religion and sociology. In addition to publications by Liberal Party members, it includes many pamphlets from other political parties.

British Literary Manuscripts Online is a digitized collection of manuscripts of British authors. It contains poems, plays, novels, diaries, journals, correspondence, and other papers from major library collections, reproduced in facsimile and searchable via detailed descriptive information. Comprises: Part 1 - British Literary Manuscripts Online, Medieval and Renaissance, and Part 2 - British Literary Manuscripts Online, c. 1660-1900.

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 90,000 pages of diaries and letters ... These diaries bring us much more than the personal. They provide a detailed record of what women wore, the conditions under which they worked, what they ate, what they read, and how they amused themselves.

C19 indexes publications of the Anglo-American World, 1790-1919, [and] is the bibliographic spine of 19th century research, providing integrated access to the most important finding aids for books, periodicals, official publications, newspapers and archives. Users of C19 Index can query its 14 collections simultaneously, or can conduct more detailed research using collection-specific search screens. C19 Index is a dynamic and growing resource.

Provides online access to Chatham House's rich archive covering the 20th and 21st centuries. It contains over 90 years of high-level analysis and research on global trends and key events and issues. Users can quickly retrieve and review briefing papers, special reports, pamphlets, conference papers, monographs, and other material, plus have access to the full text of Chatham House's two flagship publications, International Affairs, and The World Today. Additionally, the archive offers unique access to thousands of hours of audio recordings of Chatham House lectures and their fully searchable transcripts, offering valuable insight into the thoughts and perspectives of key figures in international affairs.

Personal collection of Joseph Cowen (1829-1900). A social reformer and Member of Parliament for Newcastle (1873-86), Cowen's pamphlet collection dates, mostly, from his active years from the late 1840s to early 1880s. The collection reflects his interests in social, educational and economic issues and includes much local material. Part of JSTOR's 19th Century British Pamphlets series.

A comprehensive collection of materials supporting the study of nineteenth-century criminal history, law, literature, and justice ... It helps researchers explore the causes and effects of the rise in crime during the Industrial Revolution, the development of metropolitan police departments, and the public's fascination with increasingly sensational accounts of crime in newspapers and fiction. It covers changing attitudes about punishment and reform that led to such practices as solitary confinement, prison work programs, and penal transportation, as well as "scientific" theories such as phrenology, which posited that character could be determined by physiognomy.

The Earl Grey Pamphlets collection was accumulated largely by the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Earls Grey, and the contents relate closely to their public careers and interests. The Earl Grey Pamphlets cover a wide span of political, economic and social issues of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Parliamentary reform, and matters of colonial and imperial policy are particularly strongly represented, and there are numerous pamphlets with colonial imprints. Ireland is another major theme, as are church reform, temperance (public house trusts), university extension, garden cities, and imperial federation.

Following its digital launch in 1998, Early English Books Online now contains page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere between 1473 and 1700. Beginning with the very first book published in English, EEBO draws from four authoritative bibliographical resources – both Pollard & Redgrave’s Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing’s Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) in their revised versions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) and the Early English Books Tract Supplement.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online is an ongoing project based on The English Short Title Catalogue, a machine-readable union list of the holdings of the British Library, as well as those from more than 1,500 university, private and public libraries worldwide. It delivers every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in Great Britain during the eighteenth century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. It includes a variety of materials from books and directories, Bibles, sheet music and sermons to advertisements and works by many well-known and lesser-known authors..

Portal brings together newspapers and rare journals printed between c1685 and 1835, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics include: the writings of Sir Isaac Newton; the French Revolution; reviews of literature, the theater, and fashion throughout Europe; the origins and rise of Romanticism; political debates; gender, religion, influence of the press, and coffee house gossip and discussion.

This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.

This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.

Personal collection of Joseph Hume (1777-1855), radical Member of Parliament. Hume's collection covers the major political, economic and social developments and reforms taking place in Britain in the early part of the 19th century along with the causes he particularly championed, such as universal suffrage, Catholic emancipation, a reduction in the power of the Anglican church and an end to imprisonment for debt.

Drawing upon the manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland, this searchable online resource provides access to digital facsimiles of diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings and original Indian documents containing histories and literary works. The collection documents the relationship between Britain and India in an empire where the Scots played a central role as traders, generals, missionaries, viceroys, governor-generals and East India Company officials. The dates of the documents range from 1710 to 1937.

International Historical Statistics is a collection of statistical data from around the world, covering a wide range of socio-economic topics. The collection includes data on the Americas and Europe, but also hard-to-find data on Africa, Asia and Oceania. This 2013 release updates the last print edition of International Historical Statistics, which was published in 2007 in 3 volumes. It now includes 260 years of rich data, collected between 1750-2010 and available online for the first time. Users will find the ability to conduct statistical analysis across both time and geopolitical boundaries particularly valuable. Data tables can be downloaded as Excel files.

The Knowsley collection (part of JSTOR's 19th Century Pamphlets collections) reflects the political careers of the Earls of Derby in the nineteenth century. Knowsley Pamphlets contain large sections on religion and church affairs, finance and taxation, India, Ireland, education and law reform; other strongly represented areas include foreign affairs and policy, particularly in the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the West Indies and China.

The focus of this collection is to provide direct access to facsimile images of verses as catalogued in the Brotherton Library's BCMSV database. Combines facsimile images of all of the 190 manuscripts in their entirety, linked to new indexing and to the powerful BCMSV database which lists first lines, last lines, attribution, author, title, date, length, verse form, content, bibliographic references, MS and record number for over 6,600 poems within the collection.

The Berg Collection at the New York Public Library is recognised as one of the finest literary research collections in the world, and the Victorian holdings are an important part of this collection. A broad range of authors from across the nineteenth century make this an essential research tool for all scholars and students researching Victorian literature. Authors represented in this collection include Matthew Arnold, The Brontës, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, and others.

The London School of Economics has a substantial number of 19th century pamphlets. Among its pamphlets are comprehensive collections of political party materials, including election manifestos and political cartoons. There are also collections from pressure groups such as the Fabian Society, Imperial Federation Defence Committee, Poor Law Reform Association, Workhouse Visiting Society, Liberal and Property Defence League, and from cooperative movements such as the Cooperative Women's Guild.

This database focuses on the economics of the past interpreted in the widest sense, with special collections on banking, finance, transportation and manufacturing. It's scope is international; and it's strength is in economics. Part 1 covers 1450 to 1850, Part 2 concentrates on the latter half of the nineteenth century, (1851-1914) and Part 3 covers the first half of the twentieth century (1890-1945). Part IV offers definitive coverage of the "Age of Capital," the industrial revolution, and the High Victorian Era, when the foundations of modern-day capitalism and global trade were established. It is mainly derived from the collections of the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London, and the Kress Collection of Business and Economics at the Harvard Business School.

Mass Observation was a pioneering social research organisation founded in 1937. The aim was to create an 'anthropology of ourselves'. By recruiting a team of observers and a panel of volunteer writers, Mass Observation studied the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain. This resource covers the original Mass Observation project, the bulk of which was carried out from 1937 until the mid-1950s, offering useful insight into everyday life in Britain during these transformative years.

Migration to New Worlds explores the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia. Module 1, The Century of Immigration, concentrates on the period 1800 to 1924 and covers all aspects of the migration experience, from motives and departures to arrival and permanent settlement. Module II, The Modern Era, begins with the activities of the New Zealand Company during the 1840s and presents thousands of unique original sources focusing on the growth of colonisation companies during the nineteenth century, the activities of immigration and welfare societies, and the plight of refugees and displaced persons throughout the twentieth century as migrants fled their homelands to escape global conflict.

This online archive delivers essential primary sources for the study and understanding of the challenges facing the European peoples in the aftermath of World War II. It covers the politics and administration of the post war refugee crisis in Europe well as the day-to-day survival of the refugees themselves, and contains newly-commissioned essays by leading scholars. These essays offer an insight into key themes and provide direct links to the documents mentioned and a means to access for students unfamiliar with the original materials. Five documentary British Pathe films provide visual evidence of key issues covered by the documents.

This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Sources cover many topics and a wide variety of forms of travel writing is represented, ranging from unique manuscripts, diaries and correspondence to drawings, guidebooks and photographs. The resource includes a slideshow with hundreds of items of visual material, including postcards, sketches and photographs. The sources can also be used to examine the variety of motivations for travel including tourism, work, exploration, missionary work and pilgrimages. They also show the diverse range of women who travelled.

The Wiley Digital Archives: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) collection includes materials from the society’s library, as well as its extensive archival and map collection. Hundreds of thousands of manuscript maps are complemented by manuscript material, fieldnotes, correspondence, drawings, pamphlets, atlases, gazetteers, and a range of other published and unpublished material. The archive sheds light on the impact of geographical science on history, exploration, colonialism, and diplomatic policies, as well as natural resources, cultural studies, anthropology, and ethnography.

This resource is comprised of two distinct elements: A finding aid to women's studies resources in the National Archives, Kew; and, Original documents on the suffrage question in Britain, the Empire and colonial territories. The finding aid enables researchers to quickly locate details of any document relating to women in the National Archives at Kew, and has the benefit of ranging across all of the classes of material held at the National Archives. The original documents focus on the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928, and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.

This collection of Foreign Office files explores the history of Persia (Iran), Central Asia and Afghanistan from the decline of the Silk Road in the first half of the nineteenth century to the establishment of Soviet rule over parts of the region in the early 1920s. It encompasses the era of “The Great Game” - a political and diplomatic confrontation between the Russian and British Empires for influence, territory and trade across a vast region, from the Black Sea in the west to the Pamir Mountains in the east. It is comprised of correspondence, intelligence reports, agents’ diaries, minutes, maps, newspaper excerpts and other materials. This resource offers insights not only into the impact of Great Power politics on the region, but also the region’s peoples, cultures and societies.

Database of Church Missionary Society, South American Missionary Society, and Church of Zenana Missionary Society publications. Module 1 contains periodicals published from the early 19th century up until the 21st century. Module 2 presents the medical journals, the periodicals of the Asian missions, and the Historical Record of the Church Missionary Society and the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society.

Defining Gender explores the study and analysis of gender, leisure and consumer culture, one of the most vibrant areas of social, cultural and intellectual research, transcending traditional disciplinary boundaries. The broad range of thematically organised documents from selected libraries provides an excellent opportunity for comparative study and research. Original British source material includes ephemera, pamphlets, commonplace books, diaries, etc., and address the key issues from both masculine and feminine perspectives

An archival research resource containing the essential primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to 2000. Modules are:
- Music radio and the stage
- Cinema, film and television
- Video gaming

Explore five centuries of primary source material documenting the story of food and drink throughout history. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics and power, gender, race and socio-economic status, as well as charting key issues around agriculture, nutrition and food production. Food and drink in history includes Module I and Module II.

This collection uncovers a period of intense change in Southeast Asian history, providing insight into the UK's involvement in shaping a modern Southeast Asia. These documents explore the end of the Malayan emergency, relations between the UK and Southeast Asia, developments in trade and the economy, guerrilla warfare and the creation of Malaysia against a backdrop of the Cold War. It is published in two parts: Module I. Cold War in the Pacific, Trade Relations and the Post-Independence Period, 1963-1966 -- Module II. Foundations of Economic Growth and Industrialisation, 1967-1980.

This collection contains records compiled by the Communist Party of Great Britain's (CPGB) Women's Department during the period 1944-1991. These records include minutes, agendas, and promotional materials from various women's campaigns, events, and conferences. They also include copies of Link, the party's women's magazine, and Red Rag, a controversial journal published by the party's more militant feminist members. Together, these items provide a unique insight into the relationship between Western communism and the women's liberation movement during the post-war era.

This resource presents a multi-national journey through well-known, little-known and far-flung destinations unlocked for the average traveller between 1850 and the 1980s. Guidebooks and brochures, periodicals, travel agency correspondence, photographs, short films and personal travel journals provide unique insight into the expansion, accessibility and affordability of tourism for the masses and the evolution of some of the most successful travel agencies in the world.

This collection contains an assortment of letters, news bulletins and journals from British soldiers and military men during the First World War. As such, the material offers an absorbing, and often tragic, account of what life was like for British soldiers in the trenches. The subject matter includes descriptions of the long and intimidating journey to the front, of combat including shelling and trench battles, as well as of discussions of morale, discipline, and mental health. The files cover the crucial and infamous battles of the Somme and Ypres and others. The volumes are divided into military rank from Privates to General-Brigadiers, demonstrating how the experience of warfare differed depending on your position within the British military. It also contains diaries of those combatants captured by Central Power forces, plus non-combatant experiences of the First World War.

This Mass Observation Project was launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation. It is an important source for qualitative social data in the UK. The three modules consist of all the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation between 1980 and 2010, and the responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers. The directives address varied topics across current affairs, social trends and aspects of everyday life and attitudes. The directives and responses are a useful resource for anyone interested in late-twentieth-century British social history.
Module 1: 1980s
Module 2: 1990s
Module 3: 2000s

The resource is provided in two modules, 1850-1927 and 1928-1949. It tells the story of medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918, the discovery of penicillin in 1928, and up to post-war reforms such as the foundation of the British National Health Service. The wealth of documents cover multiple conflicts as well as interwar developments from a range of perspectives. Material has been sourced from across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Europe to enable comparisons on key areas of systematic reform, improvements to sanitation and the treatment of disease, rehabilitation, nursing care, surgical techniques and wound treatment. The four conflicts robustly represented are the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War.

Founded in 1903, the Mirror played a pivotal role in the history of journalism. Peaking in 1967, with a daily circulation of 5.25 million, the newspaper has had a history full of highs and lows. Today, it is the only mainstream left-wing tabloid remaining in the UK. Gale's Mirror Historical Archive, 1903-2000 features more than 800,000 pages of full text searchable, scans of the complete run of the Mirror from 1903-2000, including the Sunday Mirror ...

This archive provides a wide range of primary sources related to the experience of childhood in the long nineteenth century. Included in the archive are books and periodicals for children, primers and other material related to education, pamphlets produced by child welfare groups, documents and photos related to children and crime, newspapers produced by youths, and much more. This unique assemblage of material is sourced from such renowned institutions as the University of Florida's Baldwin Library Collection of Historical Children's Literature, the National Archives (UK), and the British Library, among others.

Archive includes the full-text of almost 10,000 English, French and German titles. The collection is sourced from the library of Victor Amadeus, whose Castle Corvey collection was discovered in the late 1970s. It comprises one of the most important archives of Romantic era writing in existence anywhere - including fiction, short prose, dramatic works, poetry and more - with a focus on especially difficult-to-find works by lesser-known, historically neglected writers. The collection provides a wealth of fully searchable content with digital research tools that enable scholars to uncover new relationships among authors and works.

Click on collections, then archives, then select Science, technology and medicine. Part II
Collections in this archive include Natural History; Entomology; The Rise of Public Health in England and Wales; and Academies of Science Publications. Using the archive, scholars will be able to analyze technical and conceptual dimensions of scientific knowledge—from physics to psychoanalysis to macroeconomics. Diversity of coverage ensures an expansive, integrated, global view of science and technology from a critical era of scientific development.

This archive covers the events, lives, values, and themes that shaped the nineteenth century world. It provides a fully-searchable facsimile resource for the study of British life in the nineteenth century - from art, empire, feminism, the history of the book, the creative and performing arts, sport and leisure, science and medicine, and the professions, to business and politics. Few of the materials in this extensive collection have ever been reissued, in any format since original publication. Part I: Women's, Children's, Humour, and Leisure. Part II: Empire.

With a range of content focused on political extremism and radical thought in the UK, Europe, Australia and North America, Political Extremism provides a range of documents and audio recordings covering the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The archive will contain over 600,000 pages of content, making it one of the first digital archives on far-right and left political groups. This archive includes a diverse range of content, including campaigning materials, propaganda, government records and various ephemera. The inclusion of oral histories, both as audio recordings and transcripts, makes this archive a unique resource for researchers. The subscription is for Part 1, and Part 2 from 2022 (Part 2 concentrates on Far rights groups in America)

This collection of digitized primary sources provides access to more than 150 years of the longest-established association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology in its broadest sense, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. This collection of association files, manuscripts, and photos documents the history of the association as well as the services it provided to contemporary anthropology and anthropologists. Click 'Archives - 3 of 3 selected' if you want to select just this archive.

This database chronicles the plight of refugees and displaced persons across Europe, North Africa, and Asia from 1935 to 1950, bringing together over 590,000 pages of pamphlets, ephemera, government documents, relief organization publications, and refugee reports that recount the causes, effects and responses to refugee crises before, during and shortly after World War II. This rich collection makes it possible for researchers to unravel the complex history of forced migration in the twentieth century at every level.

Database features the newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, and broadsheets that form the Nichols newspaper collection held at the Bodleian library in Oxford, UK. All 296 volumes of bound material, covering the period 1672-1737, are presented in digitized format here. The collection charts the history of the development of the press in England and provides invaluable insight into seventeenth and eighteenth century England.

Features rare and unique prompt books from the world-famous collection at the Folger Shakespeare Library. These prompt books (scripts of the plays marked up for performance) tell the story of Shakespeare's plays as they were performed in theatres throughout Great Britain, the United States and internationally, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. The prompt books are supplemented by souvenir copies, ephemera, illustrations and drawings, photographs, music scores, and correspondence to highlight key aspects of each production.

Click collections, then Archives, and then World's fairs and expositions
This database gives researchers access to primary source documents about landmark exhibits from 1840 to 1940. With more than 600,000 pages of content, this archive captures the spirit, technology, design, and innovations that influenced the modern world. A partial list of the events covered includes: London, Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations (1851); Melbourne, International Exhibition (1880); Barcelona, Exposicion Universal (1888); Paris, Exposition Universelle (1889); Chicago, World Columbian Exposition (1893); and others.

This collection explores and offers varying perspectives on the explosive debate around the Transatlantic Slave Trade during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The documents, through a combination of correspondence, pamphlets, memoirs, and statistics, track both the proliferation of British power and the enslavement it was built upon, as well as the moral critiques that arose as a reaction to it. The focus of the documents coalesces around how enslavement and trade manifested in the West Indies, one of Britain’s most valuable colonial assets. Unsurprisingly, those who stood most to lose from the abolition of slavery, namely the business community and plantation owners, undertook activity to convince people of the benefits of slavery. On the other hand, religious and other civil society groups formed the bulwark of opposition to slavery and their resistance is documented through various society papers.

This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors throughout the twentieth century. Investigate the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading American sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and the public consciousness. Includes Module I and Module II.

Select collections, then filter options, then archives, then select "Voice & vision"
The Voice and Vision archive contains 15 collections, and brings yet more female voices to the forefront. Particular attention has been paid to the mediums through which women have created a voice for themselves, with female-authored literature, journals and magazines that were produced by women, not just for women. Looking beyond simply women’s suffrage, the archive covers multiple areas that are of key importance to the study of women’s history from a diverse and global perspective, from the abolition of slavery, alcohol and temperance movements, pacifism, and political activism, to domestic service, education, health and hygiene, divorce, and social reform.

Victorian Popular Culture is a resource for the study of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is a portal to spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic, spiritualist séances, optical entertainments and the first moving pictures. Its four modules are: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; and Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema. It includes full-text, full-colour reproductions of books, ephemera, handbills, pamphlets, photos, and more.

London Low Life is a full-text searchable database, containing colour images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 19th and early 20th century London reproduced from original materials in the Lilly Library, Indiana University. The collection brings to life the teeming streets of Victorian London. From salacious 'swell's guides' to scandalous broadsides and subversive posters, the material sold and exchanged on London's bustling thoroughfares offers an unparalleled insight into the dark underworld of the city. Children's chapbooks, street cries, slang dictionaries and ballads were all part of a vibrant culture of street literature.

Database contains the entire run of the Illustrated London News from its first publication on 14 May 1842 to its last in 2003. Each page has been digitally reproduced in full colour and every article and caption is full-text searchable with hit-term highlighting and links to corresponding illustrations. The publication presents a vivid picture of British and world events (including news of war, disaster, ceremonies, the arts, and science) It combines information and the power of pictures to provide unique perspective on virtually every aspect of modern life and those who helped shape it over more than 160 years.

This archive brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations to provide valuable primary source material created for local audiences by local actors during a period of enormous global change. After the Second World War decolonization movements around the world gathered pace, and new borders were set and new nations built. The development of party politics, trade unions and other local and national movements in former colonies and Commonwealth nations across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Australasia and the Americas took many different forms. The archive allows insight into the variety of systems and modes of national and international political thought that became prominent in the twentieth century, including socialism and communism, anti-imperialism, regional independence movements, trade unionism, student activism, Pan-Africanism and many modes of constitutional democracy.

From sixteenth-century origins as a trading venture to the East Indies, through to its rise as the world’s most powerful company and de facto ruler of India, to its demise amid allegations of greed and corruption, the East India Company was an extraordinary force in global history for three centuries. This digital resource allows access a vast collection of primary source documents from the India Office Records held by the British Library, the single most important archive for the study of the East India Company. From before the Company’s charter in 1600 to Indian independence in 1947, the East India Company resource tells the story of trade with the East, politics, and the rise and fall of the British Empire.
Modules subscribed:
Module 1: Trade, Governance and Empire, 1600-1947
Module 2: Factory Records for South Asia and South-East Asia
Module 4: Correspondence: Early Voyages, Formation and Conflict
Module 5: Correspondence: Domestic Life, Governance and Territorial Expansion

The late Victorian era saw a host of optical inventions and popular entertainments converge into the exciting and revolutionary form of moving pictures, changing the face of visual culture irrevocably. As people experimented with this new format across the world, a number of technical and creative pioneers in Britain were particularly prominent in capturing on film everything from national events and people’s everyday lives to variety acts and fantastical stories. With content dating from 1895 to the beginning of the twentieth century, this resource contains collections of early films from the British Film Institute, and a selection of films from the Eye Filmmuseum. The collections are supported by a number of contextual essays, video interviews and exhibitions written by Victorian Studies and Film History experts.

Nineteenth Century Literary Society makes available more than 1,400 items from the archive of the historic John Murray publishing company....Held by the National Library of Scotland since 2006, the Murray collection comprises one of the most important literary archives. Primary source materials span the entirety of the long nineteenth century and document the golden era of the House of Murray from its inception in 1768. Records digitised in this resource predominantly focus on the tenure of John Murray II and his son, John Murray III, as they rose to prominence in the publishing trade, launching long-running series including the political periodical Quarterly Review, and publishing genre-defining titles such as Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Austen's Emma and Livingstone's Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. The John Murray Archive houses the most complete archival collection of the famed poet, Lord Byron...

This database is a searchable archive of leading women's interest magazines, dating from the 19th century through to the 21st. Consumer magazines aimed at a female readership are recognized as critical primary sources through which to interpret multiple aspects of 19th and 20th-century history and culture. Available in two separate collections, Women's Magazine Archive provides access to the backfiles of the foremost titles of this type, including Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and Woman's Day, which serve as canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. In combination, the publications here cover topics such as family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, culture, and many more.

This collection offers a rich array of sources for the study of the British Empire. It features material on British colonial policy and government; perspectives on life in British colonies; the relationship between gender and empire; race; and class. Highlights include: Letterbooks and personal papers of Duncan Campbell, a key figure in the founding of the Sydney colony in New South Wales; Manuscript sources on the condition of indigenous women and the extension of suffrage to women within the Empire from The National Archives; the personal papers of Lachlan Macquarie, who served as the last Governor of New South Wales from 1810-1821 and correspondence and papers relating to Jamaican plantation life in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries.

This database contains printed and manuscript sources over four centuries, providing a multitude of perspectives on the changing roles of women in history. It offers access to the works and legacy of many notable and influential women, but also a chance to hear the voices of forgotten and ordinary women. Highlights include: Papers and rare printed works of important female writers and thinkers; Life writing and autobiographies of a range of 18th and 19th century women; The papers of Sylvia Pankhurst, suffragette, political activist and campaigner; Diaries and correspondence of aristocratic women, giving insights into the social, political and cultural history of rich and powerful women of the 18th and 19th centuries; Women's travel writing - manuscript and printed accounts of women travellers, missionaries, tourists and women living across the British Empire.