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British & Irish History

General Sites | Chronological list | Local History | Scotland | Ireland | Wales

General Sites

• British History Online
  "British History Online is the digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust."
• The British Library
  The British Library provides a number of digitized collections including Collect Britain, Images Online and Treasures in Full.
• National Archives
  The National Archives of Britain has digitized a number of documents including service records, 19th c. wills and Victorian prisoner photographs as part of their Documents Online (fees charged for downloading the documents). Other collections include Moving Here and various exhibits.
• Vision of Britain through Time
  "The Vision of Britain through Time web site provides a window into the Great Britain Historical GIS... is a description of Britain and its localities, showing how they have changed through the centuries."

Chronological List

Medieval

• Anglo-Saxon Charters
  Extensive collection of texts, background documents, and research aids sponsored by the British Academy and Royal Historical Society.
• Early Manuscripts at Oxford University
  Digitized collections of manuscripts including manuscripts dating from the 9th to 16th centuries. Also see Life of Edward the Confessor, a 13th century manuscript.
• Old English
  "A guide to resources (mostly on-line) for the study of Old English: e-text, manuscript images, fonts, instructional software, CD-ROMs, and more. Part of Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies.
• Secrets of the Norman Invasion
  Author's in-depth document on the Norman invasion positing the theory that the Normans landed at Wilting Manor rather than at Pevensey. Complete with extensive footnotes, Domesday maps, Bayeux Tapestry plates, aerial and resistivity survey photos.
• Medieval English Urban History
  The "aim of this site is to provide historical information about cities and towns in England during the Middle Ages, with particular emphasis on medieval boroughs of East Anglia and on social, political and constitutional history. A selection of primary documents (translated into English) revelant to English urban history is included."

Early Modern

• Richard III Society Online Library
  "Full-text editions and extracts of fifteenth-through nineteenth-century sources on the Ricardian controversy" including Croyland Chronical Continuations.
• Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads
  Searchable collection of over 30,000 digitized British broadside ballads dating from the 16th to early 20th centuries. Includes a small collection of sound files.
• Tudor History
  This site provides historical narrative, biographies, images and transcripts of selected primary sources dealing with the Tudor period. Also see Life in Elizabethan England.
• Tyburn Tree: Public Execution in Early Modern England
  "Tyburn Tree is designed to provide information on the Web about public execution in Early Modern England, specifically in London." Includes links to documents and a brief bibliography.

Modern -- 18th c.

• British History 1700-1950
  Educational site with encyclopedic articles dealing with various aspects of British history such as Emancipation of Women 1700-1920, and First World War, and Socialism and the Labour Movement.
• The Drawn Sword: Engravings and Woodcuts from the MacBean Stuart and Jacobite Collection
  Searchable collection of 1,300 digitized engravings and woodcuts dealing with the Jacobite rebellions maintained by the University of Aberdeen Historic Collections.
• John Bull and Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations
  Exhibit by the Library of Congress and British Library. "To illuminate the interwoven history of the two nations from the earliest British settlement in Virginia to the present, the exhibition examines exploration and settlement; war, both as enemies and allies; language and literature; science and technology; reform movements; and popular culture."
• Proceedings of the Old Bailey
  "Ambitious project aims to create a fully searchable digitized collection of the Old Bailey's entire proceedings from 1674 to 1834. Currently, visitors can browse through 22,000 trials, from December 1714 to December 1759."
• Romantic Chronology
  Primarily a literary site, links to writings of the Romantic period are arranged chronologically. Edited by Laura Mandell at Miami University, Ohio.
• South Sea Bubble Resources
  Digitized pamphlets, books, broadsides, prints and ephemera from the Kress Collection at the Baker Library at Harvard Business School.
• The Spectator Project
  "The Spectator Project is an interactive hypermedia environment for the study of The Tatler and The Spectator and of the eighteenth-century periodical in general." Currently in progress.

Modern -- 19th c.

• British Library Online Newspaper Archive
  A pilot project providing access to selected days of a small number of British newspapers.
• Charles Booth Online Archive
  Charles Booth Online Archive contains digitized versions of poverty maps, police notebooks and the Booth family magazine, The Colony. Also see Booth's 1889 London Poverty Map and Greenwood's Map of London 1827
• Industrial Revolution & the Railway System
  The website includes excerpts from primary sources including the Illustrated London News and a small selection of illustrations.
• Monuments and Dust: The Culture of Victorian London
  Ambitious project to provide "complex visual, textual, and statistical representation of Victorian London." Site currently includes excerpts from the Times, a couple of datasets and texts and a VRML model of the Crystal Palace.
• Moving Here - 200 Years of Migration to England
  "Moving Here provides free online access to resources which record and illustrate the migration of the Caribbean, Irish, Jewish and South Asian Communities to England over the past two centuries." Searchable collection of more than 150,000 items including photographs, documents, passenger lists, audio clips and more.
• Victorian Dictionary
  Excerpts from primary sources are organized in the form of a dictionary covering Victorian social history with topics ranging from advertising to women.
• Victorian Web
  The Victorian Web is based in Brown University and serves as an encyclopedia to the period. Also included are links to other sites dealing with the period. Also see Victorian Research Web and the Victorian Women Writers Project.
• Writings of Charles Darwin on the Web
  Collection of Darwin's writings including correspondence, books and articles.

Modern -- 20th c.

• Battle of Britain
  The Royal Air Force's site on the Battle of Britain includes background information, daily reports and photographs. Also see the Imperial War Museum's Battle of Britain site and oral histories.
• Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature
  Searchable database of 28,000 cartoons published in British magazines and newspapers dating from 1904 through the 1990s. Also see Comic Art at Princeton University Library, Cruikshank Artwork, a small collection of punch cartoons and the Library of Congress' British Cartoon Prints.
• Churchill: The Evidence
  This exhibit on the life and times of Winston Churchill includes a biography and a selection of photographs and documents. Also see the Churchill Papers Catalogue and biography.
• Imperial War Museum Online Exhibitions Collection of exhibits dealing with Britain's experience with war in the 20th century from World War I to the Greenham common peace movement of the 1980s. The individual collections include oral histories, photographs, diaries and other material. Examples include: Edward Ardizzone: Diary of a War Artist, The Spanish Civil War: Dreams and Nightmares and Gallipoli: The Drama of the Dardanelles.
• Pamphlet Collection
  Partially digitzed collection of 19th and 20th century pamphlets from the British Library of Political & Economic Science. The collections dealing with social policy and transport history are the two collections most fully digitized.
• Piltdown Plot
  Collection of primary and secondary articles dealing with the Piltdown hoax. For other works related to Darwin and evolution see The Huxley File, Alfred Russel Wallace Page and Evolution Website.
• Toyota City Imaging Project
  "A collection of motoring and transport images from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera." Most of the material deals with automobiles but earlier modes of transportation are also covered.
• Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive
  Collection of Wilfred Owen correspondence, manuscripts and poetry. Also includes substantial primary source material (images, audio, film, and text) dealing with World War I.

Local History

• Coal Mining in North Staffordshire
  Exhibit of photographs, drawings and audio dealing with the history of coal mining. For other regional exhibits relating to mining and industry see Lead Mining in the Yorkshire Dales and the Industrial Heritage of Calderdale.
• Leodis Database
  Database of more than 12,000 images of Leeds and vicinity.
• Manchester Local Image Collection
  Collection of almost 80,000 historic photographs of Manchester and vicinity.
• Tower Hamlets' Local History Library and Archives
  Collections of local histories and transcriptions of primary sources (mostly 19th and early 20th centuries) dealing with the historyof London's East End.
• Virtual Norfolk
  "Virtual Norfolk is a three year project to create an innovative teaching and learning web site" that includes teaching modules and a collection of original sources dealing with Norfolk history.

Scotland

• Aberdeen Harbour Board Collection
  Collection of photographs from the University of Aberdeen depicting the history of the port.
• Scottish Economic History Database, 1550-1780
  "This online database has been produced to further the dissemination of data collected during a project on Scottish wages and prices, 1550 -1780."
• Statistical Accounts of Scotland
  Digitized versions of the 1791-1799 and 1834-1845 statistical accounts. The accounts are based on parish records and are "vitally important reference sources for Scotland's history, geography and society."
• Timothy Pont's Maps
  Manuscript maps created by Timothy Pont in the 1580s and 1590s. The site includes the maps and accompanying narrative.
• Virtual Mitchell: Images of Glasgow
  Searchable collection of historic photographs despicting Glasgow by the Mitchell public library of Glasgow. Also see the library's Sir Thomas Lipton Digitisation Project.
• The Word on the Street
  Searchable collection of more than 1800 Scottish broadsides.

Ireland

• The 1916 Rising: Personalities & Perspectives
  Online exhibit from the National Library of Ireland provides over 500 images from the Library's collection of books, newspapers, drawings, and proclamations.
• Act of Union Virtual Archive
  Collection of primary source material relevant to the 1801 Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain includes pamphlets, parliamentary papers, newspaper articles and manuscripts.
• Breaking the Silence
  Collection of oral histories of those Irish people who did not emigrate that "aims to capture living memories of Irish life in the 1940s and 1950s by interviewing those who remained in Ireland in decades when so many were leaving."
• CAIN: Northern Ireland Conflict
  CAIN, Conflict Archive on the Internet, is a "web site devoted to providing a wide range of information and source material on the Northern Ireland conflict and politics in the region from 1968 to the present."
• CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts
  "To bring the wealth of Irish literary and historical culture (in Irish, Latin, Old Norse, Anglo-Norman French, and English) to the Internet in a rigorously scholarly project." Texts, both literary and historical, date from the medieval period to the 20th c. Also see the Celtic Studies Bibliography.
• Fenian Brotherhood Collection
  "The Fenians were established in Ireland and the United States in 1858 with the avowed purpose of overthrowing British rule in Ireland and establishing an Irish Republic." This collection from the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives contains letters, pamphlets, newspapers and other material from the American branch.
• Views of the Famine
  Transcriptions of Irish and British newspaper coverage of the famine. Also see Irish Views of the Famine.
• Hap Hazard: A Manuscript Resource for Spenser Studies
  Transcribed "collection of state documents concerning Ireland with which Spenser was involved in his capacity as secretary in the administration of Ireland during the 1580s."
• Omagh Bomb Digital Archive
  Archive of newspapers and other material dealing with the 1998 bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland which killed 29 people.
• Transportation Records
  Searchable database of Irish transported to Australia between 1788 and 1868. Database maintained by the National Archives of Ireland. The transportation records include name, trial date, crime, sentence and ship. Also see Irish Penal Laws.

Wales

• Gathering the Jewels
  More than 20,000 images of objects, texts and photographs that illustrate the rich cultural history of Wales.
• Ymgyrchu! A Century of Political and Social Campaigning in Wales
  Selection of documents and images from the National Library of Wales.

Image: Detail from Monet's The Thames at Westminster, 1871.