Primary sources provide first-hand accounts of an event or topic from people directly connected to them. They can be visual, material, archeological, or written, video or audio. The sections below focus on a selection of the written and visual primary sources available via the library website. For newspapers, please see the newspapers tab.
For audio and video primary sources, please see the radio and television tab.
Access millions of pages of primary source collections across the entire portfolio of Adam Matthew Digital, spanning content from the 15th-21st centuries.
Digital collection of British and Irish women's diaries and correspondence written during the period 1500 - 1950.
British Periodicals provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images.
Empire Online charts the story of the rise and fall of empires over five centuries from the explorations of Columbus, Captain Cook, and others, through to de-colonisation in the second half of the twentieth century.
Researchers can explore themes such as colonisation and decolonisation, missionaries, slavery, travel and travel Writing, religion, race, class and imperialism through a wealth of highly indexed manuscript and full text printed material.
Primary source material for the study of the Great War, from the "Personal Experiences" module.
Research tool which allows you to search across multiple collections of primary source documents (newspapers and archive collections).
Colour images from the Bodleian Library's John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation between 1937 and the mid-1950s.
Founded in 1937 by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, film-maker Humphrey Jennings and poet Charles Madge, the aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting a team of observers and volunteers to write about their lives and opinions.
This resource offers revolutionary access to the original Mass Observation project, the bulk of which was carried out from 1937 until the mid-1950s, offering an unparalleled insight into everyday life in Britain during these transformative years. Explore original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation, as well as printed publications, photographs and interactive features.
The material covers:
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Admin: reviewed 23/01/2024
From 1800 to 1980, Migration to New Worlds charts the movement of people throughout the ‘Century of Immigration’, through the First and Second World Wars and into the modern era. It includes personal diaries, oral histories, letters, travel journals and scrapbooks which provide individual accounts of migration and settlement in North America and Australasia. Government papers, society correspondence, original maps, watercolours, engravings, objects, shipping papers and rare printed material offer significant context to these eye-witness experiences.
Access to the following collections of British parliamentary papers: 18th century (1688-1834), 19th century (1801-1900), 20th century (1901-2003/04 session) and Hansard (1803-2005).
Definitive collection of primary source materials about the contribution of women to the First World War in Europe.
