RESEARCH RESOURCES FOR BRITISH HISTORY

 

 

Research Resources on the Web: Primary Sources


Proceedings of the Old Bailey: 1674 to 1913: A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's Central Criminal Court. (free web resource)


Nineteenth-Century British Newspapers Online: The British Library, in partnership with JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and Gale, has launched the public version of its 19th century British Library Newspaper website. Searches of the site are free and downloads of full-text articles are available by purchasing either a 24-hour or seven-day pass. Users can buy a 24-hour pass (up to 100 downloads) for £6.99 or a seven-day pass (up to 200 downloads) for £9.99. Access to The Graphic and The Penny Illustrated Paper is free.

Irish Newspaper Archive: The world's largest online database of Irish Newspapers, with many of Ireland's leading national and regional titles. The archive ranges from the 1700's to present, and is composed of scans of the entire newspaper page. Full-text searching is available for all titles included. Individuals are able to conduct an unlimited number of searches within a set time period for flat fees starting at 10 Euros.

 

The Jamaica Gleaner: This archive begins with 1834 and runs up to 2008. The entire newspaper is digitized, so you not only get article content, but also the pictures and ads. It is a paid subscription - $7.95 for one day's unlimited access or a year for $50

 

Parliamentary Papers: Published Parliamentary material (from 1066 to present) has been digitized and made available on the Internet by various organizations. The website of the UK Parliament contains tables on this page that summarize the main series of material which are available in electronic form. Some material is not available without a library or personal subscription, but much of it is open access, especially for resources on the eighteenth century and earlier.

 

Punch: or the London Charivari – Free Access to most years of this influential nineteenth-century illustrated humor periodical.   


Greenwood's Map of London 1827
: This page allows you to browse the entire map. (free web resource) 

 

 

Research Resources Available in Strozier: Primary Sources


The Times Digital Archive: 1785-1985 – Allows for full-text searching of the entire London Times for a two-hundred year period. Easy to use and extremely valuable for any number of research projects.

AVAILABLE AT STROZIER – search the “Databases A-Z list” on the Strozier homepage.

 

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers – Online Digital Access for Nineteenth-Century Parliamentary Papers: Digital access to the complete sessional papers issued by the House of Commons from 1800 to 1900. High-quality scans of all original documents and detailed subject indexing allow quick and easy searching, including accompanying illustrations, charts, and maps.
AVAILABLE AT STROZIER – search the “Databases A-Z list” on the Strozier homepage.

Print Access for Other Parliamentary Papers Resources in Strozier Library: click to download PDF handout

Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO) - Based on The English Short Title Catalogue, listing the holdings of the British Library and more than 1,500 university, private and public libraries worldwide. This includes the full text of over 150,000 English-language books published between 1701-1800.
AVAILABLE AT STROZIER – search the “Databases A-Z list” on the Strozier homepage.

C19: The Nineteenth Century Index (Nineteenth Century Masterfile)
A super-index to more that 16.8 million documents that includes the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, and the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue.
Included in the Nineteenth Century Index are:
Poole's Index to Periodical Literature 1802-1906                Catalogue of Scientific Papers 1800-1900
Index to Legal Periodical Literature 1786-1922                  Catalogue of Scientific Papers-Subject Indexes
ALA Portrait Index                                                              The Virginia Gazette 1736-1780
Index to Articles on Religion 1890-1899                             New York Daily Tribune Index 1863-1905
Palmer's Index to the Times                                                  ALA Index to General Literature|
American State Papers                                                          The Psychological Index 1894-1905
Swem's Virginia Historical Index 1690-1930                       Congressional Record 1789-
Index of Patents issued from USPO 1790-1893                  New York Times Index 1863-1905
Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England 1066-1803      Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789-1897
AVAILABLE AT STROZIER – search the “Databases A-Z list” on the Strozier homepage.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
A ground-breaking and engaging reference work providing 50,000 specially-written signed biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of the British past, from the earliest times to the end of the year 2000.
AVAILABLE AT STROZIER – search the “Databases A-Z list” on the Strozier homepage.

 

Other Good Free Web Resources:


Studies in Scarlet: Marriage and Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914:  Drawn from the Harvard Law School Library's extensive trial collections, Studies in Scarlet presents images of the texts of more than 450 separately published trial narratives printed in the United States or the United Kingdom from 1815 until 1914.  Especially valuable as sources for women's studies, the cases involve not only trials for divorce, domestic violence, adultery, bigamy, breach of promise to marry, and the custody of children but also those for murder and rape.  Featured are trials concerning the wealthy and the renowned, such as Caroline, Queen Consort of George IV, and Oscar Wilde. The larger part of the collection, however, consists of the stories of ordinary men and women thrust into the public eye when their marriages and love affairs went wrong, or their relationships did not conform to social standards.

The collection may be viewed at  http://vc.lib.harvard.edu/vc/deliver/home?_collection=scarlet


Internet Library of Early Journals: A joint project by the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Oxford. Contains digitized runs (thirty years or longer) of three 18th and three 19th century journals. Available free on the Internet at http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ilej/

Gentleman's Magazine             Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

The Annual Register                Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine  

Notes and Queries                  The Builder

 

The Jamaican National Library is beginning the process of digitizing their archives for free access. There are currently four digital archives collections up now, including the slave trade collection


The Royal Historical Society bibliography is an authoritative guide to what has been written about British and Irish history from the Roman period to the present day. The Bibliography is hosted by the Institute of Historical Research, which is part of the University of London. (As of January 1, 2010 this became a subscription-only service maintained by a private company, due to budget constraints.)

www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
(free and reliable internet encyclopedia focusing on British history) 


http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ (free web resource with reliable information on British history)

 

Guides to Finding Primary Sources  
The National Archive (of the UK)
British Library - Public Catalogue

British Library - Newspapers Catalogue

 

Guides to Archival Holdings
ArchiveGrid --  history
Repositories of Primary Sources
The National Register of Archives (UK)
MUNDUS
– a web-based guide to more than four hundred collections of overseas missionary materials held in the United Kingdom.

 

 

Other Online Databases for British History (currently not available at Strozier)


Empire Online: New database of primarily British primary sources. Access is via full-text searching and through various tabbed links (essays, documents, biographies) as well as via the “View Names” “View Topics” and “View Places” links under the search button.

Section I: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969
Section II: Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire
Section III: The Visible Empire
Section IV: Religion and Empire
Section V: Race, Class and Colonialism, c1783-1969

(Available at University of Florida)

Periodicals Index Online (available from Proquest)
An electronic index to millions of articles published in the arts, humanities and social sciences, across more than 300 years. 
(Available at the University of Florida) 

The Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, 1450-1850 (available from Gale)
This collection follows the development of the modern, western world through the lens of trade and wealth – the driving force behind many of the major events during the period 1450-1850. It can be used to study slavery, colonization, social history, Latin America/Caribbean history, and gender, as well as economics, nation-state development and more. Strozier has the Goldsmiths’-Kress collection on microfilm, but not in this electronic database form (see below for call number information). 
(Available at Strozier on Microfilm only)

British Periodicals (available from Proquest)
British Periodicals consists of two collections that, when combined, will include 500 periodicals from the late 17th century to the early 20th century-some 6 million pages. Allows for searching by content type for advertisements, letters, maps, and illustrations; detailed title histories with key editors and contributors; and integration with the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals (available separately) that reveals authors for unattributed articles or articles written under a pseudonym.

 

17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers:

Based on the British Library newspaper collection, allows for full-text searching of nearly three million pages and over 20 million articles.

 

The Economist Historical Archive 1843-2003 (available from Gale)
The complete facsimile run of The Economist, all in a full-text searchable interface. 

 

 

Microfilm Primary Sources and Finding Aids Available in Strozier for 19th Century British History


 

NEWSPAPERS

Film 1373 Reels 485-499  African Times, 1862-1892

NP417             African Herald; Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone, 1817-1828

NP314             Bahama Gazette, 1784-1821

NP313             Quebec Gazette, 1764-1817

NP263             Canton Register, 1827-1843

NP265             Canton Press, 1838-1844

NP315             Royal Gazette, 1804-1837

NP258             Chinese Times, 1886-1891

NP264             Chinese Courier, 1831-32; 1850-1941

NP65               North China Herald (title varies) 1850-1941

NP261             Peking Daily News, 1909

NP262             Peking Post, 1910

NP259             Peking & Tientsin Times, 1894-1902

NP407             Early English Newspapers, 1620-1840 (analyzed; see guide below)

NP401             Daily Advertiser, 1731-1795

NP345             London Gazette, 1665-1800

NP404             St James Chronicles, 1801-1866

NP12               Times (London) Index available online for years after 1905)

NP353             Sunday Times (Index available online for years after 1905)

NP347             Workers’ Dreadnought, 1914-1924

NP263             Hong Kong, Late Canton Register, 1827-1833

NP257             Daily Advertiser and Shipping Gazette, 1871-1876

NP255             Hong Kong Mercury and Shipping Gazette, 1866

NP448             Bombay Courier, 1793-1821

NP449             Calcutta Gazette, 1794-1816

NP450             Madras Courier, 1791-1818

NP52               Dublin Journal, 1809-1810

NP47               West Africa, 1917-1965

NP48               Hampshire Chronicle (Winchester), 1798-1816

NP49               Hull Packet, 1793-1816

NP50               Morning Chronicle (London), 1801-1815

NP51               Shrewsbury Chronicle, 1797-1815

                        Manchester Guardian

 

 

REFERENCE BOOKS AND INDEXES


 

Cox, Susan M.

Early English newspapers: bibliography and guide to the microfilm collection.

STROZIER LIBRARY – Micromaterials – PN5114 .C68 1983

 

Palmegiano, E. M.

The British Empire in the Victorian press, 1832-1867: a bibliography
New York : Garland Pub., 1987.
STROZIER LIBRARY -- Reference -- Z2021.C7 P32 1987

 

Ward, William Smith.

Literary reviews in British periodicals, 1821-1826: a bibliography with a supplementary list of general (non-review) articles on literary subjects.

New York: Garland Pub., 1977.

STROZIER LIBRARY -- Reference -- Z2013 .W36 1977 Shelved on Index Shelf 7


The Wellesley index to Victorian periodicals, 1824-1900: Tables of contents and identification of contributors, with bibliographies of their articles and stories

STROZIER LIBRARY -- Reference -- Z2005 .H6

 

 


MICROFORM SETS WITH GUIDES/INDEXES


 

Mif 796-811 Annuals (Various titles)

Index: Micr Z2014 D7 E5 1985

 

PR15 English literary periodicals, 1681-1914

CD-ROM Index to set: STROZIER LIBRARY -- Reference -- PN5124.P4 I532 1995

Index to London Magazine (Reels 79-84) Micr AP4 R53

 

NP268 Early British periodicals

Guide and Index: Micr Z6956.E5 B72 Index Reels 1-902

 

Mif 486 History of the English Benedictine Congregation, 1558-1850

Guide: Micr BX3016 S64

 

Film 9441 Papers of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1786-1845

Guide: Micr DA 535 P37 1984

 

Film 9440  Papers of John Cam Hobhouse, 1786-1869

Guide: Micr DA536 B75 A3 1987

 

Film 9393  Repetories of the Court of Aldermen (London) 1495-1835

Guide: Micr DA676 C68 pt. 1-2

 

Film 9497  India in the age of Empire: The Journals of Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (1812-1881)

Guide: Micr DA475.2 E34 I53 1997

 

Film 9331  John Stuart Mill: the economic, political, and feminist papers (The J.S. Mill, Harriet and Helen Taylor collection from the British Library of Political and Economic Science, London). 

Guide: Micr H59 M54 J64 1988

 

Film 9465  Civil disturbance, Chartism, and riots in 19th century England

Guide: Micr HD8396 C58 1980 pt.1-2

 

Film 9447  Condition of the English working class: the papers of the Rev. Henry Solly, 1812-1903

Guide: Micr HD8399 E5 E447 1989

 

Film 9255  Sex research: early literature from statistics to erotica

Guide: Micr HQ60 S49 1983

 

Film 4256 and Mif 4458  Gerritsen collection of women’s history, 1543-1945

Guide: HQ 1121 G47 1983

 

Film 9302  Radical and reforming periodicals for and by women

Guide: Micr HQ1593 S62

 

Film 9535  Women’s language and experience, c1500-1940: women’s diaries and related sources

Guide: Micr HQ1593 W67 pt.1-3

 

Film 5870  Anti-slavery collection from the Library of the Society of Friends

Guide: Micr HT857 A52 1978

 

Film 9409 Shanghai Municipal police files, 1894-1949

Guide: Micr HV7850 S5 G85 1984

 

Mif 557 Diary of Beatrice Webb, 1873-1943

Index: Micr HX243 W4 A73 1978

 

Film 9292 Helen Blackburn pamphlet collection from Girton College, Cambridge

Guide: Micr JN979 B57 1987

 

Mif 1821 British trials, 1660-1900

Guide: Micr KD370 B72 units 1-5

 

Film 9674 Old Bailey proceedings

Guide: Micr KD7865.2 C4 1984

 

Mif 1397  19th century women writers

Guide: Micr PR1110 W6 N56

 

Film 9309 Charles Dickens research collection

Guide: Micr PR4581 C46 1990

 

Film 1460 19th century children’s literature

Guide: Micr PZ5 N56

 

Mif 1404 19th century publishing, the book trade, and the diffusion of knowledge

Guide: Micr Z279 N56

 

Film 5868 and 5869P  History of photography

Guide: Micr Z7134 H572 1892

 

Film 4318 Goldsmiths’-Kress Library of economic literature

Guide: Micr z7164 E2 G64

 

Film 9195 and Mif 1281 Archives of the Fabian Society

Guide: Micr Z7164 S67 A72

 

Film 5244 Great Britain. Foreign Office.

Correspondence with the British Commissioners at Sierra Leone, Havana, the Cape of Good Hope, Loanda, and New York; and reports from British Vice-Admiralty Courts, and from British Naval officers, relating to the slave trade. (Also called Slave trade, 1858-1892)

Guide: Micr Z7164 S6 G84

 

PRINT SETS:


British documents on foreign affairs--reports and papers from the Foreign Office confidential print.
Part I, From the mid-nineteenth century to the First World War.

Series A, Russia, 1859-1914

STROZIER LIBRARY JX632 .B74 1983 v.1-6

Series B, The Near and Middle East, 1856-1914

STROZIER LIBRARY JX632 .B745 1984 v.1, v.3-20

Series C, North America, 1837-1914

STROZIER LIBRARY JX632 .B746 1986 v.1-15

Series D, Latin America, 1845-1914

STROZIER LIBRARY JX632 .B747 1991 v.1-9

Series E, Asia, 1860-1914

STROZIER LIBRARY JX632 .B748 1989 v.1-30

Series F, Europe, 1848-1914

Remote Storage 2 Ask at Circulation JX632 .B7414 1987 v.1-35

 

Series G, Africa, 1848-1914

STROZIER LIBRARY Subbasement - Ask at Circulation JX632 .B769 1995 v.1-25

 

Great Britain. Foreign Office. The Affairs of Kuwait, 1896-1905

STROZIER LIBRARY -- Oversize -- DS247.K87 G73 1971 v. 1-2

 

Great Britain. Foreign Office. British and Foreign State Papers.

Remote Storage 2  Ask at Circulation JX103 .A3 v. 1(1812/14)-v. 166 (1976)

 

 

 

Important Regional Archives for British History

 

The Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, Nashville, TN - Contains microform copies of everything that is housed in the Angus Library, Regents Park College, Oxford, which holds all of the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) records. The SBHLA gives the Lynn E. May Research Grant to help cover expenses (travel, photocopies, hotel) up to $700 (approximately). http://www.sbhla.org 

 


Compiled by Charles Upchurch, History Dept.

and Lucy Patrick, Special Collections, Strozier Library

February 22, 2006

Revised August 23, 2010 


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