LibGuides: Modern Britain: Primary Sources

Websites

History in Focus
Provides original articles, book reviews, and links to historical resources
Archival Sound Recordings from the British Library
British Cartoon Archive
Social Policy Pamphlets
From LSE
Beveridge Report and Representation of the People Act
Imperial War Museum
Moving Here: 200 years of migration to England

Finding Primary Sources in the Catalog

Primary sources:
Use SOURCES as sub-heading, eg:
Great Britain -- History – World War, 1939-1945-- Sources
Diaries:
Use DIARIES as a sub-heading or keyword (or see Matthews, British Diaries, in Reference)

Other useful keywords: Papers, correspondence, biography, pamphlets, manuscripts, maps,

Online (Duke users only)

The Times Digital Archive
Search The Times (London) from 1785-1985 in full-text; provides facsimile reproductions of full pages or specific articles. HINT: search in full-text rather than keyword to get the best retrieval.
Guardian and The Observer
The Guardian (1821-2003) and its sister paper, The Observer (1791-2003) provide online access to facts, firsthand accounts, and opinions of the day about the most significant and fascinating political, business, sports, literary, and entertainment
Annual Register
The Annual Register is a year-by-year record of British and world events, published annually since 1758.
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers
Full text of the Sessional Papers from 1801 to the present.
Periodicals Index Online
Indexes periodicals from their first issues to 1995. Now contains hundreds of full-text periodicals.
Empire Online
British Empire full-text documents from the 15th century to the 20th century. .
India, Raj and Empire
provides documents from the manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland pertaining to the History of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India
Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003
online access to the entire run of the ILN from its first publication on 14 May 1842 to its last in 2003.
Economist Historical Archive 1843-2006
Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice, 1490-2007
documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries.
London Low Life
provides colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 19th and early 20th century London.

Primary Sources in the Library

Rare Book, Manuscripts and Special Collections LIbrary
Includes many British manuscripts and books. They are listed in the online catalog, but see also the Finding Aids for more details on the manuscript collections.