British History

Over 30,000 images of maps, manuscripts, documents, monuments, photographs from the British Library including online exhibitions and virtual books.

Digital Collections associated with Cambridge University.

Digital collections for Oxford University Libraries.

Interface in English. Content in English or original languages.
Links to European historical documents that have been transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. Maintained by Brigham Young University.
Open Access.

Interface in English or other, major European languages. Content in multiple languages.
Europe-wide unified search of digitized collections. Images, audio, texts, and more. Funded by the EU. Covers more than 1,000 years of history. Strongest for 1500 to 2000.
Open Access.

Interface in English and French (and other major, European languages). Majority of the content in French.
France's fantastic digital library from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Digitized periodicals, images, recordings, and more. Covers two millenia with particular strength from 1500 to the present.
Open Access.

Access to more than 86,000 digital facsimiles of personal narratives, music, photos, books, maps, and more associated with the World Wars.

LSE has a unique archive of primary research material covering all aspects of the debate around Britain and the European Union.

We host a selection of data sets as well as maps and charts, illustrating religion in present-day Britain and religious change over time.

Explore and download census records, digitised and harmonised from the original enumeration books, detailing characteristics for all individuals resident in Great Britain at each census from 1851 to 1911, developed by the I-CeM project.

Data reaches back across the 20th century.

The UK's largest independent producer of official statistics and the recognised national statistical institute of the UK.

Information on different topics with datasets coverage differing by topic. Some sets go back to the 1920s and others begin in the 1990s.

A centre of excellence in acquiring, curating and providing access to the largest collection of social science and population data for over 50 years, the UK Data Archive is based at the University of Essex.

Explore the UK’s largest collection of social, economic and population data resources (recent past).

British Pathe is one of the oldest media companies in the world.Their roots lie in 1890s Paris where their founder, Charles Pathe, pioneered the development of the moving image. They were established in London in 1902, and by 1910 were producing their famous bi-weekly newsreel the Pathe Gazette. After the First World War they started producing various Cinemagazines as well. By 1930 they were producing the Gazette, the Pathetone Weekly, the Pathe Pictorial and Eve's Film Review, covering entertainment, culture and womens' issues.

History through the eyes of 73 years of the British Cabinet.

Access to UK (1163-present), Irish (1838-present), and EU (1951-present) law as well as Case Law for the UK, Caribbean (region dependent), and European Court of Human Rights (1960-present). Must visit BC Law Library for login.

Legislation.gov.uk carries most (but not all) types of legislation and their accompanying explanatory documents for almost a century.

Research subject guide curated by Foundation librarians and is a collection of primary source material about Winston Churchill.

The BDOHP interviews former diplomats or other officials who have played a significant role in events bearing on international relations. The tendency towards greater openness in government has strengthened in recent years.

This website will make available some 23,500 items from the Royal Collection, Royal Archives and Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. This wide-ranging material can be explored together online for the first time, illuminating our understanding of Albert’s life and legacy.

The archive contains over 1 million documents in nearly three thousand archive boxes currently occupying around 300 metres of shelving. The papers date from Margaret Thatcher's childhood to the end of her life, and include tens of thousands of photographs, as well as a vast collection of press cuttings, and many audio and video tapes of public and private events. Thatcher never kept a diary, but the archive includes rich details of her role in important domestic and world events.

Thousands of facsimiles of documents related to British colonial administration of different regions in what is now Nigeria dating predominately from 1900 to 1960.
Open Access.

Includes papers on the First World War, with topics such as Cambrai, Amiens and the final offensives; the Western Front, War at Sea, and more.

The BCA is a national collection of socio-political cartoons from British newspapers and magazines, plus comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines.

More than 60 digital facsimiles.

The MH 47 series contains up to 11,000 case papers from the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal which, between 1916 and 1918, heard appeals from men who had previously applied to a local tribunal for exemption from compulsory military service. The National Archive has digitized a substantial subset.

Curated digital facsimiles from the British Imperial War Museum on topics from air raids to women at war.

The Liddle Collection documents and preserves first-hand accounts of individuals who experienced the two World Wars.

Vera Brittain (1914) was born in Staffordshire in December 1893. Just as the First World War was breaking out, she won an Exhibition to Somerville to read English.

This project has conducted mass digitization of primary sources relating to the First World War from the Libraries, Special Collections and Archives of Wales.

Take a journey through the personal, political and economic struggles that have symbolised women's battle for equality over the past 500 years, through a representative selection of the broad range of materials in LSE Library and The Women's Library @ LSE. A chronological presentation of more than 300 items from the 16th Century to the present day.

Discover World War One historical sources from both sides of the conflict, contributed by institutions from across Europe. Includes diaries, letters, posters, poems, and more.

The items in this online exhibition come from the LSE archives and from the Women's Library, recently relocated to the British Library of Political and Economic Science. They showcase these collections' value for researchers, and will hold the attention of anyone seeking to recapture the mood of 1914-18.

In June 1948 the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks, Essex carrying hundreds of people from the Caribbean. 70 years on, Windrush Stories invites us to consider a longer, more complicated and ongoing relationship between Britain and the Caribbean.

Explore 1,027 individual landing cards representing each passenger who arrived on the MV Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks on 22 June 1948.

The Horniman connects us all with global cultures and the natural environment, encouraging us to shape a positive future for the world we all share.

From never-heard-before oral histories to articles exploring our extensive photography collection, we have curated a selection of content that explores the history of the African-Caribbean community in London.

Letter from Prime Minister Attlee to an M.P. about immigration to the U.K, 5th July, 1948 (CO 876/88)