Britain and the World

"The Archives Hub provides a gateway to many of the UK's richest historical archives." - The Archives Hub

"These records are the unit war diaries of the British Army in the First World War and are held by The National Archives in record series WO 95." - The UK National Archives

"The BCA holds the artwork for more than 150,000 British editorial, socio-political, and pocket cartoons, supported by large collections of comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines." - BCA

"The aim of the project was to publish a series of volumes containing an annotated selection of official documents from the UK National Archives, charting British withdrawal from its colonial territories." - BDEEP

"The British Library's holdings include:
•Material over 3,000 years old (Chinese oracle bones) - and today's newspapers
•310,000 manuscript volumes: from Jane Austen to James Joyce; Handel to the Beatles
•60 million patents
•Over 4 million maps
•Over 260,000 journal titles."

"In June 1948 the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks, Essex carrying hundreds of people from the Caribbean. Many aboard had been to Britain before. Some had fought in World War Two. Most were filled with excitement and hope about coming to the ‘Mother Country’. However, this was not the first nor the last ship to carry migrants from the Caribbean. Nor was Britain an unknown world. Slavery, colonialism, and struggles for freedom had entwined the two societies for centuries. 70 years on, Windrush Stories invites us to consider a longer, more complicated and ongoing relationship between Britain and the Caribbean. Learn about the Jamaican feminist poet Una Marson. Read Trinidadian J J Thomas's scathing rebuttal of English colonialism. And see the manuscripts of Andrea Levy’s novel Small Island, James Berry’s Windrush Songs and Benjamin Zephaniah's poem 'What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us'." - The British Library

"British Pathé is a dynamic cross-media company and a market leader in the licensing of footage to the broadcast industry" - British Pathe

"This website holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available for viewing online." - Colonial Film Database

"‘Missionary films’ are probably best defined as films shot in the mission field, by missionaries, for a metropolitan audience. The archive collections contain numerous films of this kind. Almost all are produced or sponsored by missionary groups or societies, including the Church Missionary Society, the Methodist Missionary Society, the London Missionary Society, the Salvation Army, and others." - Colonial Films Missionary Archive

The North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS) is a scholarly society dedicated to all aspects of the study of British civilization. - Conference for North American British Studies

"The site is concerned with the history of the United Nations and international organizations. It provides a resource for scholars who wish to research in UN archives or find online materials related to the UN. The website includes comprehensive guides to archival and online sources on the United Nations. In addition, leading scholars on the UN have written about their experiences working in UN archives and discuss further research possibilities." - The UN History Project

"The Fabian Society collection includes:
•Pamphlets published as part of the Fabian Tracts series, 1884-2000
•Minutes of Executive Committee meetings and other key committee meetings, 1884 to 1954
•Pamphlets published as part of the Young Fabian pamphlet series, 1961-2009" - Fabian Society

"This site has been produced from digitised editions of Commons and Lords Hansard, the Official Report of debates in Parliament." - Hansard

"A collection of digitised trade directories, part of the University of Leicester's Special Collections Online, covering England and Wales from the 1760s to the 1910s. " - Historical Directories of England & Wales

"The Institute of Historical Research is one of nine member Institutes of the School of Advanced Study, part of the University of London." - IHR

"The historical images in the International Mission Photography Archive come from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections held at a number of centers in Britain, Europe, and North America. The photographs record missionary endeavors and reflect the missionaries’ experience of communities and environments abroad." - International Missionary Photography Archive

"This database includes abstracted details of the contents of both Poll Books and Rate Books for Westminster, for the period between 1749 and 1820. It comprises 143,840 records, reflecting either the voting behaviour or taxation listings for individual householders in each of twelve years, and incorporates information about the occupation and address of each individual." - London Lives

"The purpose of this website is to encourage and enable the use of 19th Century British pamphlets ...This project was led by the University of Birmingham, sponsored by the Consortium of Research Libraries in the British Isles (CURL, now called RLUK), and funded under the Research Libraries Support Programme (RLSP). It created catalogue records for nearly 180,000 pamphlets held within 21 UK research libraries." - 19th Century British Pamphlets Online

"On this page are images from two exhibitions--'Reporting the World', John Pilger's 'Great Eyewitness Photographers', at the Barbican, London, across Australia and elsewhere, from summer 2001; and Okwui Enwezor's 'The Short Century', Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, shown in Munich, Chicago and MoMA, New York, 2001-2002." - Marion Kaplan’s photos of decolonizing British Africa

"This site provides three historical series pertaining to the average worker in the United Kingdom. The series are:
◾The retail price index
◾The average nominal earnings
◾The average real earnings" - Measuring Worth

"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." - Old Bailey

"The Science and Society Picture Library represent the visual content of the Science Museum Group." - Science and Society Picture Archives

An excellent resource for the UK's public spending data.

The Wellcome Library is the "world's major resources for the study of medical history."

"The Women’s Library collection is a cross-domain collection containing printed material, archives and 3D objects. The majority of the material dates from the late 19th century to present day. The focus is mainly UK, but there is some international material. " - The Women’s Library