UVM Libraries Research Guides: British History: Primary Resources

UVM Subscriptions

The following digital collections provide a starting point when looking for online primary resources.

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Large image archive. Includes images of fine and popular arts, photographs, graphic arts, and more from all historical periods and places.
British History Online This link opens in a new window
Digital collection of primary and secondary materials on British History from the 11th through the 19th centuries. Extensive resources on Parliamentary, legal, church, and local histories.
Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 - from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Nineteenth Century Collections Online encompasses multiple collections of primary source materials. Among these is the British Politics and Society Collection that includes archival content on radicalism, reform movements, crime, Freethinkers, Labor history, and more. Documents include books, letters, pamphlets, reports, periodicals, Home Office records, and more. Other collections in the resource cover Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture , and European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection.

Additional Online Primary Source Collections

The following digital collections provide a starting point when looking for online primary resources.

18th Century Entertainment Ephemera
"18th century Entertainment ephemera - Paybills, handbills, newscuttings and prints taken from the following sections: Theatre; London Play Places; Animals on Show; Circuses; Concerts; Dioramas; Entertainment folders; Exhibitions; Human Freaks; Magic and Mystery; Museums and Waxworks."
British Library: Online Exhibitions
Links to primary materials on a wide variiety of topics. Highlights include: Illuminated Manuscripts, the Evanion Collection of Ephemera, and the sound archive Voices of History.
British Pathé
British newsreels covering all of the twentieth century.
Cobbett's Parliamentary History
36 volume work on Parliamentary proceedings in the 18th century.
History of the United Kingdom: Primary Documents
Part of EuroDocs, this directory provides links to primary materials on UK history from antiquity to the present.
Imperial War Museum
National Archives
Guide to locating primary materials held by the British National Archives. Limited online access.
Old Bailey Online - The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913
"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."
Online Exhibitions from The National Archives
Online Historical Population Reports
British census data from 1821 to 1937.
Parliament Roles of Medieval England
Records of Parliament from reign of Edward I (1272 - 1307) through Henry VII (1485 - 1509).