Bibliography of local history
This is a bibliography of sources for local history in the UK and Ireland.
Anyone beginning a study of a particular place should gain insight from such
works into what types of sources should be available. Some works listed here,
for example Anderson,
The Book of British Topography and West,
Town Records actually list works on, or sources for, specific
places, while Currie and Lewis discuss published English county histories in
detail. Other works listed here are less likely to lead you directly to
something specific to the place of interest to you, but could give you ideas of
what to look for and where to look for it. For further clues see
Maps,
Images and
Towns. For online bibliographies of British and Irish
history and archaeology see
Bibliographies.
- Anderson, J.P., The Book
of British Topography: a classified catalogue of the topographical works in
the library of the British Museum (1881). [Download or read
online]
- Archives Then
and Now by John West, author of Town Records and
Village Records.
- Carter, P. and Thompson, K., Sources For Local Historians
(2005).
- Currie, C.R.J. and Lewis, C.P., A Guide to English County Histories
(1994).
- Dooley, T., Sources for the History of Landed Estates in
Ireland (1999).
- Hey, D. (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History
2nd edn.(2008).
- Higgs, E., Making Sense of the Census Revisited: Census records for
England and Wales, 1801-1901 - a handbook for historical researchers
(Institute of Historical Research 2005).
- Hill, M. and Gillespie, R. (eds.), Doing Irish Local History:
Pursuit and Practice (Institute of Irish Studies 1998).
- Humphries, A.L., A Handbook
of County Bibliography, Being a Bibliography of Bibliographies relating to
the Counties and Towns of Great Britain and Ireland (1917).
[Download or read online]
- Local History
Online by the former publishers of Local History
Magazine.
- National
Archives: Local history: a guide to records useful held by the NA which
are relevant to local history.
- Riden, P., Record Sources for Local History (1987).
- Richardson, J., The Local Historian's Encyclopedia 3rd edn.
(2003).
- Ryan, J.G., Irish Records: Sources for Family and Local
History, Revised edn. (1997).
- Some Notes on
Medieval English Genealogy, by Chris Phillips. Despite the
title, this site is very useful for local historians, listing material
available online on specific places. It includes an index to the volumes of
the Victoria County History.
- Stephens, W.B., Sources for English Local History
(1981).
- West, J., Village Records (3rd edition 1997).
- West, J., Town Records (1983). Covers
England and Wales.
- British History Online:
a digital library created by the Institute of Historical Research and the
History of Parliament Trust, containing some of the core printed primary
and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British
Isles. It includes many volumes of the
- Victoria History
of the Counties of England, which covers monasteries in an early
volume in each county series. Later volumes are topographical, giving
detailed accounts of parishes, boroughs and cities, but the scheme is far
from complete for all counties. The online Parish Index covers all
volumes.
- A Vision of Britain has
some basic background on each parish, and selections from travel writing
and historical maps.
- And see my list of primary sources in print,
which links to a growing number of online works, in addition to those at
Vision of Britain.
- Atkins, P.J., The Directories of London, 1677-1977 (1990).
- Keen, M.E., A Bibliography of Trade Directories of the British
Isles in the Victoria and Albert Museum (1979).
- Norton, J., Guide to the National and Provincial Directories of
England and Wales, excluding London, published before 1856 (Royal
Historical Society 1950).
- Shaw, G. and Tipper, A., British Directories: A bibliography and
guide to directories published in England and Wales (1850-1950) and
Scotland (1753-1950) (second edition 1997).
- For online directories see Introduction: Local Sources.
Place-names
- The Archif
Melville Richards database of Welsh place names and their historical
meanings is maintained by the University of Wales, Bangor.
- Gaelic Place-Names of
Scotland: the official gazetteer provides a single source of
authoritative information on 1,000 Gaelic place-names, including the
research on which names have been determined, links to bibliographical
information and map references.
- The Gazetteer of British
Place Names: an exhaustive place name index to Great Britain,
containing over 50,000 entries including commonly accepted alternative
spellings and Welsh and Gaelic versions. Provided by the Association of
British Counties.
- Hogan, E., Onomasticon Goedelicum (Dublin 1910), Reissued by
Four Courts Press, Dublin, in 1993. An index, with identifications, to the
Gaelic names of places and tribes of Ireland. It is being replaced by the Locus project, whose work
is available as:
- The Historical Dictionary of Irish Place-Names: a series
of volumes published by the Irish Texts Society.
- Historical Dictionary of
Gaelic Placenames makes the published content available online in
searchable database format.
- A Key to English Place-Names
is an online database. The Institute for Name-Studies, School of English,
The University of Nottingham provides etymologies, arranged by county.
- The Papar Project looks at
all the places in the Northern Isles of Scotland and Caithness which have
the name Papay, meaning
the island of the priests
and Papil meaning
the settlement of the priests
.
- Place-Names of Northern
Ireland is an online database, drawing on a previous series of
published volumes.
- Public SPASE: place-name
families provides online guidance on particular groups of Anglo-Saxon
place-names.
- The Scottish Place-Name Society has
useful material online, including a bibliography and an index of Celtic and
other elements in W.J. Watson's The History of the Celtic Place-names
of Scotland.
- The survey of English place-names, by the English Place-Name Society,
which has published volumes by county, listed
online.
- Spittal, J. and Field, J. (eds.),
A Reader's Guide to the Place-Names of the United Kingdom: a
bibliography of publications (1920-89) on the place-names of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands
(1990). Some works listed also cover Eire.
- Wikipedia: List
of generic forms in British place names.
- The
Census, 1801-1901: Statistical Reports: The National Archives lists the
titles of the population abstracts from each national census, which were
published as Parliamentary Papers. The publications themselves are online
via Histpop (see below).
- D. Coleman and J. Salt, The British Population: Patterns, Trends
and Processes (Oxford University Press 1992).
- B. Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How climate made history
1300-1850 (2000).
- Guide to Census Reports, Great Britain 1801-1966 (HMSO,
1977).
- A. Hinde, England’s Population: A History since the Domesday
Survey (2003).
- Histpop : The Online Historical
Population Reports Website provides online access to the complete British
population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1937.
- Hoskins, W.G., Local History in England, 3rd edn. (1984)
gives a table ranking the largest English
towns over the centuries.
- R. A. Houston, The Population History of Britain and Ireland
1500–1750, in M. Anderson (ed.), British Population History
from the Black Death to the present day (Cambridge
University Press 1996).
- J. West, Town Records (1983) includes a table of population
figures for English towns from the national census returns 1801-1901.
- E.A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Population History of England
1541–1871: A reconstruction, Cambridge Studies in Population,
Economy and Society in Past Time No. 46 (1989).
- Batts, J.B., British Manuscript Diaries of the 19th Century: An
Annotated Listing (1976).
- Gard, R., The Observant Traveller: Diaries of Travel in England,
Wales and Scotland in the County Record Offices of England and Wales
(HMSO 1989).
- Handley, C.S., An Annotated
Bibliography of Diaries Printed in English first published on
CD-ROM (1999). Includes much material from Matthews (below).
- Matthews, W., British Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of British
Diaries Written between 1442 and 1942 (1950).
- See Published primary sources for some
well-known travellers' diaries.
- Brockett, A., The Devon Union List: A collection of written
material relating to Devon (1977).
- Davidson, J., Bibliotheca Devoniensis (1852).
- Green., E., Bibliotheca Somersetensis (1902).
- Humphries, A.L., Somersetshire
parishes; a handbook of historical reference to all places in the
county (1905) [Download or read online].
- Hyett, F.A. and Bazeley, W., The
Bibliographer's Manual of Gloucestershire Literature: being a classified
catalogue of books, pamphlets, broadsides and other printed matter relating
to the county of Gloucester or to the city of Bristol, 3 vols.
(1895-7) [Download or read online].