World History: Primary Source Collections Online

"We capture, preserve, and make accessible UK central government information published on the web. The web archive includes videos, tweets, and websites dating from 1996 to present." Contains over 1.4 billion web pages, documents and social media posts. (UK National Archives)

Interactive map showing the location of bombs dropped on London during World War II. The material has been made available free of charge for non-commercial individual, academic and research use. (The National Archives, UK)

More than 16,000 images from the Aerofilms Collection (1919-2006), one of the earliest and most significant collections of aerial photography of the UK. (Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), English Heritage (EH), and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW))

Search for the will of a soldier who died while serving in the British armed forces between 1850 and 1986. (Gov.UK)

Maps of the Western Front in the Great War depicting British and German trenches. (National Library of Scotland)

Contains core primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles, 11th - 19th centuries. (Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust)

TIP: Focus on the Collections -> Digital Collections menu for digitized historical sources.

Search or browse by themes. Also includes maps 1900-2000. (U.K. National Archives)

"Chorographia Britanniae. Or a Set of Maps of all the Counties in England and Wales: to which are prefix'd the following general Maps..." (National Library of France)

Makes available and searchable the principal records of clerical careers from over 50 archives in England and Wales. (King's College London)

Brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and nineteenth century Britain, 1500-1900.

The Digital Repository of Ireland is a national digital repository for Ireland’s humanities, social sciences, and cultural heritage data. You can browse and search across multiple collections from some of the finest Irish institutions.

Online archive of documents and sources related to Irish history and migration, 18th - 20th centuries. Includes a wide variety of Parliamentary papers, interviews with returned and non-returned migrants, and other primary sources such as letters to and from emigrants. (Queen's Univ. Belfast & others)

Thematically organized photographs, paintings, drawings, maps, text, transcribed documents and audio files documenting the history of various counties in England. (Note: Also contains secondary-source text/descriptions.) (Victoria County History, English Heritage, Institute of Historical Research, et. al.)

800 manuscripts preserved in equal parts by the BnF and the British Library. The manuscripts have been selected for their historical significance in terms of relations between France and England during the Middle Ages. (Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Library)

Proceedings of the British House of Commons and House of Lords.

Complete population reports for Britain and Ireland, 1801-1937 (200,000 pages of census & registration, plus National Archives documents, critical essays, transcriptions of legislation, etc.). Textual and statistical material covers economy, birth, death, marriage, and medicine in 19th and 20th centuries. (Univ. of Essex)

Database of convicts transported to Australia between 1788-1868. (National Archives of Ireland)

Links out to sites containing birth, death, marriage, and and church records; cemetery records; census records; city and street directories; immigration, emigration, ship, and passenger lists; land records; maps; military records; tax records; and other miscellaneous records of historical and genealogical value.

Household returns and ancillary records for the censuses of all 32 counties of Ireland, 1901 and 1911. (National Archives of Ireland)

From site: "Official place of deposit for records of the Defence Forces, the Department of Defence and the Army Pensions Board."

Eyewitness accounts of the Irish famine migration to Canada, 1847-1848. Transcribed and translated French language annals of the Grey Nuns of Montreal, or Sisters of Charity; annals from the Sisters of Providence; correspondence from Father Patrick Dowd, who worked alongside the Grey Nuns in the fever sheds; testimonies from Irish famine orphans who were adopted by French-Canadian families. (NUI Galway, Moore Institute, Univ. of Limerick, Irish Research Council, et al.)

"A digital museum and library that allows users to encounter the written and visual legacy of famous Victorian explorer David Livingstone (1813-73)." High-resolution manuscript images and critically-edited transcriptions from the University of Maryland Libraries, David Livingstone Centre, National Library of Scotland, and other archives with Livingstone holdings. Leading archival resource for the study of African history, nineteenth-century travel, and the British Empire. (Univ. of Maryland Libraries)

Focus is on "plebian Londoners." Draws on 240,000+ manuscript and printed pages from eight London archives and fifteen datasets created by other projects. Also provides excellent research guides on topics such as interpreting manuscripts and researching various topics (crime, illness, poverty, etc.)

Comprised of four distinct, interoperable projects: a digital Map and gazetteer based on the 1560s Agas woodcut map of London; an Encyclopedia of London people, places, topics, and terms; a Library of marked-up texts rich in London toponyms; and a versioned edition of John Stow’s Survey of London. (Univ. of Victoria)

High-quality scans of proof maps prepared for John Speed's Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, which was published in 1611/12. (Cambridge Univ.)

"A massive database of MT's public statements of all kinds across the years (speeches, interviews, press conferences, etc), searchable by date, subject, importance, and keyword." Use the Search and Browse links in the menu to dive into the content. The site also contains audiovisual recordings of some speeches/statements (under Multimedia) and a collection of declassified documents (under Archive). (Margaret Thatcher Foundation)

150 salt and albumen print photographs in two albums, of prisoners confined in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, in August 1857 and November 1866. (New York Public Library)

Tip: Focus on the "Online Records" button on this page to find digitized collections. Especially strong in census, military, immigration, and similar records. (The National Archives)

Includes Census Records for 1901 and 1911, Census survivals for 1821-51, Census Search forms for 1841-51, the Tithe Applotment Books from 1823 to 1837, the Soldiers’ Wills from 1914 to 1917, and the Calendars of Wills and Administrations from 1858 to 1922. (National Archives of Ireland)

The records of Network Rail, a UK railroad company, including Victorian and Edwardian infrastructure diagrams. (Network Rail)

"The collection begins in the 1860's when photography was introduced as a means of speeding up map production." The photos also reveal details of the city streets where they were taken. (TimePix)

A leading force in the "golden age of English caricature," illustrator Gillray ridiculed politicians, religious leaders, and the ruling class of his day. (Princeton Univ.)

"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." (Univ. of Hertfordshire)

Digitized significant archives from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, including: pre-1840 freeholders' lists; images; index of wills, coroner reports, etc.; archive of the "Troubles" (1968-1982); Ulster Convenant; street directories; and more. (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure)

One of the most valuable sources of original material for research on Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century. (National Archives of Ireland)

Archive video, audio, and photographs of Irish history (Irish Film and Television Network)

Documents the history of Sainsbury’s [supermarket] from its foundation in Drury Lane in 1869, as well as the transformation in retailing since the mid-19th century and its impact on society. Includes photographs and artefacts, especially in the areas of product packaging, advertising, and retail stores. Also includes key company records: reports, accounts, press releases, and material relating to head office operations, food supply, production and distribution, subsidiary companies, and staff records.

Late 18th and early 19th century caricatures and ballads, mostly British and some American. (American Antiquarian Society)

A collection of statistics, historical maps, census reports, and historical travel writing from Britain, 1801-2001. (Univ. of Portsmouth)

The majority of the archive holdings on this site relate to the UK’s leading pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer and, WBA business, Boots UK, and chart its development from its foundations in the mid-19th century. This digital archive holds around 27,000 entries, with about 4,500 digitized so far, and includes photographs, letters, advertisements, building plans, and colleague magazines. It gives anyone interested in the history of the business the opportunity to discover and study resources rich in detail. (Walgreens Boots Alliance)

Original books, booklets, magazines, manuals, newspapers, and documents relating to WWII, from many sides of the conflict. Includes US, British, Polish, German, Czech, Italian, Japanese, and Russian documents.