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Access a wide range of primary sources related to the arts in the Victorian era, from playbills and scripts to operas and complete scores. These rare documents were sourced from the British Library and other renowned institutions. Covering more than a century, British Theatre, Music, and Literature is without equal as a resource for 19th century scholars. The collection provides a detailed look at the state of the British art world with, for example, not only manuscripts and compositions, but also documents such as personal letters, annotated programs, meeting minutes, and financial records, offering scholars an unmatched glimpse into the inner workings of the arts world and life in Victorian Britain.
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Papers, notebooks and casebooks from the survey into London life and labour, 1886-1903. Booth family papers are also included.
This site presents the original illustrations from Charles Dickens’ Novels. It is a a project of Dr Michael John Goodman, a freelance researcher - see the About section for further information.
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If you want to trace details about a specific person or place, or perhaps need inspiration for creative writing, this could be just what you need! Connected Histories provides an all-in-one search across electronic content available on various sites such as 19th Century British Pamphlets, the Clergy of the Church of England, Charles Booth Archive, Convict Transportation Registers, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, British Newspapers 1600-1900 etc. If you find something useful on a resource we pay for e.g. British Newspapers, you may need to follow the link to that resource from the Finding Articles page within these Subject Pages.
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This archive comprises more than 2 million pages from manuscripts, books, broadsheets, and periodicals. It unites a number of disciplines, from law, criminology, and history to studies of popular culture and fiction. The full story of a notable crime can be revealed via court transcripts, prison and transportation records, petitions, police advertisements, collections of newsprint cuttings, ballad broadsheets, and criminological comment. Digitally available for the first time is a wealth of English archival crime material, both rural, as with the Althorp papers, and urban, with collections of police correspondence from London and Manchester. The extensive notebooks of English judge John Duke Coleridge have also been digitized, and also collections of police correspondence from London and Manchester.
The collection covers Europe, North America, India, and the Antipodes and includes material in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.
This short video gives tips about using the archive.
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The world's first illustrated weekly newspaper containing useful background for Victorian topics in particular.
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Access a range of primary and secondary sources covering London from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. As well as documents, you will find interactive maps, illustrations and photographs to really bring the streets to life.
Watch this short video for an overview of this key source.
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This archive contains primary sources covering the development of urban centres and the major restructuring of society that took place during the Industrial Revolution. The collections offer an understanding of key events such as Chartist agitation, Anti-Corn Law disturbances, the Peterloo massacre and tensions underlying policy formation and the nature of Victorian government. Home Office records reflect the varied responsibilities of the Home Secretary's office, including petitions to the Crown, appointments to public offices, disturbances and sedition, inventions, poor relief, prison administration, public health, public order, and the universities.
Get an overview in this short video.
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Discover what life was like for the poorest communities in Victorian Britain, and explore the government policy, social reform movements and philanthropic efforts of charitable institutions that sought to alleviate poverty. This archive offers a multi-dimensional portrait of poverty from the perspectives of central state officials, local bureaucrats and inspectors, social policy makers, politicians and people working in private voluntary organizations. Documents cover the complex social climate of 19th and early 20th century Britain between the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834 and the abolition of the workhouse system in 1930.
For a quick overview, watch this. If you want an in-depth introduction to this resource, watch this 1 hour webinar (information about this specific resource starts at 8 min 30 secs).
Additional access instructions:
Use VPN for off campus access
London's Central Criminal Court records 1674-1913 - just under 200,000 trial details are available.
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As the 19th century opened in Britain, William Paley published his Natural Theology (1802), a text that seemed to successfully integrate 18th century natural science and religious belief into a sophisticated scheme proving that the universe demonstrated its own divine design. Liberal Christianity, however, would not go uncontested. The 19th century, instead, was punctuated by economic, social, and intellectual events that birthed two powerful waves of evangelical revival waves that in turn sparked highly influential religious and secular responses of a rationalist, philosophically organicist, or countercultural character. These disruptive events included the demographic upheavals of the early and second industrial revolutions, the mid-century revolutionary political upsurges of 1848, early trade union activity, stratigraphic geology spawned by the mining industry, and the natural selection thesis forcefully argued by Darwin's Origin of the Species (1859). All three types of intellectual response were associated with powerful impulses toward moral or social reform. It is impossible to consider the topic of religion in the long 19th century without considering its relationship to the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, temperance, conditions of labor, utopian experiments in living, missions to aid the poor, and the emergence of Christian Socialism and the Social Gospel movement, which this collection illustrates.
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Search or browse one of the most detailed primary sources for the history of Britain and its former colonies. Reports from military officers serving abroad are included, as well as Command Papers, Bills, Committee reports. Hansard is available from 1803-2005. (See UK Parliament link if you need more recent papers.)
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An essential resource for the study of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries containing everything from full-text books, to posters and performance tickets.
Watch this 90 second video about how to store items for later use.
Additional access instructions:
Use the VPN for off campus access
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A highly-rated American academic site about all aspects of UK Victorian literature and culture. You will find primary and secondary texts (including scholarly book reviews) covering Victorian economics, literature, philosophy, political and social history, science, technology, and visual arts (painting, architecture, sculpture, book design and illustration, photography, decorative arts, including ceramics, furniture, jewelry, metalwork, stained glass, and textiles, costume and various movements, such as Art Nouveau, Japonisme, and Arts and Crafts).
Login to access services restricted to University members including off-campus passwords, edissertations and interlibrary loans
We offer a range of ways to help you. From chat, email and phone to bookable appointments with a librarian.
Our referencing page helps you reference sources correctly with guidance for an extensive range of print and online sources.
Visit the Library blog for advice on study, student living and resources, news and technology highlights plus random fun or topical items which may be of interest.
