Resources for CECS students
York
York
York has been an important political, cultural, religious and trading centre since Roman times, and is particularly rich in Georgian architecture. With a population of approximately 180,000, York is a university town that’s big enough to feel cosmopolitan but small enough not to be overwhelming.
York is centrally located in the UK, midway between the major capitals of London and Edinburgh, with excellent transport links. We’re just two hours from London by train, and well served by international airports at nearby Leeds and Manchester.
The Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the King’s Manor combines a dynamic research culture with a beautiful historic setting. The Centre’s postgraduate study room and computer facilities at the King’s Manor mean students can enjoy exploring the latest online resources from a medieval building in York city centre. You can re-enact eighteenth-century polite sociability in the King’s Manor Refectory or in one of York’s many coffee-houses, visit the City Art Gallery across the square, or have lunch in the eighteenth-century York Assembly Rooms round the corner from the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies.
Eighteenth-century York
The New Walk by the river used to be a fashionable place to promenade in the eighteenth century, as you can see from this picture.
York Conservation Trust provides a timeline and walking-guide to historic York.
From the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, you can easily walk to:
- The Assembly Rooms, visited by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
- The Museum Gardens The Yorkshire Philosophical Society opened the Museum and Gardens in the 1830s, and you can visit them today.
- The Theatre Royal If you’re interested in the theatre during this period, you might enjoy Mrs Jordan’s Profession by Claire Tomalin (Penguin, 1995; new ed., 2003), which is a fascinating story of Dora Jordan, an actress who actually performed in York Theatre Royal during her career. Perdita by Paula Byrne tells the story of Mary Robinson, an actress and author. You might also want to visit the Georgian Theatre Royal in nearby Richmond.
- Nearby Fairfax House often has good exhibitions about eighteenth-century life and culture.
Country Houses
Yorkshire is particularly rich in country houses. Easily accessible from York by bike or bus, Beningborough Hall (linked to the National Portrait Gallery) has some Kit-Kat Club portraits and prints, and also has some beautiful gardens.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu lived in Middlethorpe Hall for a while. It's now an exclusive restaurant/spa - but they also do traditional teas. It is a beautiful house, well worth a visit if you can afford it.
Castle Howard will be especially worth visiting in the summer, as the gardens are extensive, rolling and green, and there is a large walled rose-garden.
There are many other wonderful country houses in Yorkshire. The University has established a partnership with some to form the Yorkshire Country Houses Project which is behind a module we run at MA level on Country Houses.
York Libraries
Libraries and Collections in York
The main University of York Library is the J.B. Morrell Library. It is situated on campus between the Raymond Burton Library for Humanities Research, which houses the Borthwick Institute Archives, and the Harry Fairhurst Building, where you can book study rooms.
The University also has a library at King’s Manor: here you will find book and microfilm holdings relating to architecture and gardens, the Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Centre for Medieval Studies, and Archaeology.
In addition to its print and microfilm holdings, the University Library provides access to an impressive and exciting range of digital resources.
Key resources include the superb collection of texts available via Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO); access to this and many other databases is available via York metalib .
The University Library’s Special Collections include the Dyson collection at Heslington campus (which contains many eighteenth-century first editions) and the Stephen Copley collection at The King's Manor. The Library also provides a free bus minibus service to the British Library BLDSC Reading room at Boston Spa.
The King’s Manor Library
The Stephen Copley Collection at the King’s Manor Library is an invaluable resource for those studying the long eighteenth century. King’s Manor Library also holds some fascinating eighteenth-century microfilm collections. See http://www.york.ac.uk/library/libraries/universityofyorklibraries/#whinfieldfor opening times and contact details.
The Borthwick Institute for Archives is one of the major archive repositories in Britain. It holds the records of the Archbishopric of York from the early thirteenth century onwards, and specialises in the study of ecclesiastic institutions. Special deposits include the Rowntree Papers, the Tuke Papers on the Retreat Hospital, part of the Elton Library, an important collection of Southern African holdings, and, for both religious and political historians, the family papers of the Lords of Halifax since the eighteenth century. The Institute is in new purpose-built premises next to the JB Morrell and Raymond Burton Libraries. The entrance to the Institute is through the main Library entrance.
The York Minster Library has particular strengths in liturgical writings, literature, iconography and art history. It contains a large and important local history collection for York and Yorkshire in all periods and holds the archives of the Dean and Chapter. Some of its holdings are borrowable and there is a pleasant reading room looking out onto the city walls.
The City of York Public Library may have some relevant academic works for reference or loan. It has a valuable reference collection of local history materials, including files of local newspapers since the eighteenth century (with subject index), and a collection of some 9,000 photographs of York over the past hundred years. It also has the Sir John Marriott Memorial Library, specialising in modern European history, 1789-1945.
The York City Archives (adjacent to the King’s Manor, within the City Art Gallery building) contain not only civic records for York from the medieval period onwards, but also numerous other private and institutional deposits relating to the history of York and its people.
Yorkshire Country House Partnership Libraries Project
The University Library and six houses in the Partnership (Brodsworth Hall, Burton Constable, Castle Howard, Harewood House, Lotherton Hall, and Temple Newsam) collaborated in a project to review and create a brief catalogue of their library collections. http://www.york.ac.uk/library/libraries/yorkshirecountryhouselibraries/
Other Libraries
Access to Libraries outside York
From York there are excellent communications by road and rail with the rest of the country. London is only two hours away by train and most major provincial cities can be reached by mid-morning at the latest.
Boston Spa Reading Room
York is the nearest university to the British Library document supply centre at Boston Spa, the central national repository for the UK inter-library loans service and the largest lending library in Europe. The University provides a free minibus service to the BLDSC on alternate Wednesdays and Fridays, on a pre-book basis through the library's lending services. Items for consultation at BLDSC should be booked six working days in advance of a visit. A trip to Boston Spa can often save you time and money.
British Library London
The British Library is the world's largest library and one of the world's major research libraries, holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats. You will need to apply for a reading ticket if you wish to use the London reading rooms.
COPAC The most useful way to search for material not held by York libraries
The Copac® library catalogue gives free access to the merged online catalogues of many major University, Specialist, and National Libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library.
SCONUL Access is a reciprocal access scheme, granting borrowing privileges to many types of library users working or studying at participating higher education libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
SCONUL Access provides borrowing privileges for most:
- academic staff on open or fixed term contracts
- postgraduate research students registered for a PhD, MPhil or similar qualification
- part-time, distance learning and placement students
- full-time postgraduates
- (N.B. While it will enable you to use many key libraries, Sconul does not give you access to the British Library, the Bodleian or Cambridge University Library: you will need to apply for separate reader passes for these libraries, so remember to check that SCONUL covers the library you need to use before setting off anywhere! Remember too that some libraries need letters of support/ verification from academic staff, so check on the library websites and ensure you have all the supporting documents you need well in advance.)
Some other northern libraries you might like to explore
University of Manchester Click here for information on the beautiful and extensive John Rylands Library at Manchester
Great North Museum Library (Newcastle Upon Tyne) Including the Library and Archives of the Natural History Society of Northumbria, the Library of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne (formerly at Black Gate), and Newcastle University’s Cowen Library.
Other useful specialist libraries [N.B. This section is under construction]
History of Medicine
Religion
- The Bar Convent in York The Bar Convent Library specialises in Church History, with a focus on the history of the recusancy period in England and the 19th century Catholic revival. There is also an important collection of about 1,300 antique books dating from 1508 to 1850. The Bar Convent Archives house the records of the Bar Convent’s 300 year history, with earlier Mary Ward documents.
- Catholic Archives Society http://www.catholic-history.org.uk/catharch/
- Catholic National Library The Catholic National Library has over 70,000 books, pamphlets and periodicals including theology, spirituality and related subjects, biography, history (including Catholic Family History), and many works not freely available elsewhere. The reading room contains the reference stock, current journals, and back numbers of the most frequently consulted journals. There is also a rare collection of Catholic fiction.
- Dr Williams's Library is the pre-eminent research library of English Protestant nonconformity. Established under the will of Dr Daniel Williams, the Library is one of the oldest open to the public still conducted on its original benefaction. It has never received any government funding.
- Lambeth Palace Library Founded in 1610, the Library is one of England's oldest public libraries, and has had a rich and varied history.
- Gladstone’s Library at St Deiniol’s specialises inTheology and Victorian Studies.
- Manchester Wesleyan Research Centre The Manchester Wesley Research Centre promotes and supports research on the life and work of John and Charles Wesley, their contemporaries in the 18th century Evangelical Revival, their historical and theological antecedents, their successors in the Wesleyan tradition, and contemporary scholarship in the Wesleyan and Evangelical tradition.
- Quakers
- The Library of the Religious Society of Friends The Library is one of the largest collections in the world relating to Quakers and their activities. It is an inspiring resource for understanding peace, prison reform, humanitarian assistance, and the anti-slavery movement as well as Quaker history, faith, thought and practice.
- Woodbrooke Quaker Studies Centre
Women’s writing
- Chawton House Library is a UK registered charity with a unique collection of books focusing on women's writing in English from 1600 to 1830.
- Corvey Women’s Writing Project
Museums/Art Galleries
British Museums and Art Galleries
London
The British Library, London
The British Museum, London
The Cartoon Museum, London
The Foundling Museum, London
The Garden Museum, London
Hunterian Museum and Archives at the Royal College of Surgeons
The National Gallery, London, with links to the Collection and the Collection Online
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
The Natural History Museum, London
The Paul Mellon Centre for British Art
The National Portrait Gallery, London
Royal Academy of Arts, London
The Royal Holloway Collection (An Introduction to the College Picture Collection)
The Tate Gallery, London, with a link to the Tate Collection
University College London Art Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Wallace Collection, London
The Wellcome Trust Collection, London
England
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria, with a link to the Collection
Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Oxford
Birmingham Museums and Galleries
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham
Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby
Fashion Museum, Bath
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, with a link to the Collections
Lady Lever Art Gallery, with a link to Collections
The Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
Shandy Hall, Coxwold, North Yorkshire, maintained by the Laurence Sterne Trust, holds the world's largest collection of material relating to Laurence Sterne.
Sheffield Museums and Galleries
The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester (UK)
Wilberforce House, Hull
Victoria Art Gallery, Bath
Scotland
The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery (University of Glasgow), Glasgow
Marischal Museum (University of Aberdeen)
National Galleries of Scotland, with a link to the Online Collection
Wales
National Museum & Gallery of Wales, Cardiff
Other useful art websites
Online Resources
Useful eighteenth-century resources
National Archives
The UK government's official archive, containing over 1,000 years of history. Also includes the ARCHON online directory.
Jack Lynch's excellent Eighteenth-Century Resources and the Voice of the Shuttle's Eighteenth Century & Romanticism pages include comprehensive lists of links. Also useful is the IHR's searchable database of internet history resources, Connected Histories History Online. Art History Resources on the Web has useful links to museums and art galleries world-wide.
- Romanticism on the Net
- Eighteenth Century Studies
- Eighteenth Century Life
- Women's Writing
- Part of the larger C-18 site, Kevin Berland's Selected Readings
- The Age of Johnson
Some major & generally reliable online archives of electronic texts include
- The University of Virginia's Electronic Text Centre
- Sydney's scholarly text and image service SETIS
- Alex at Berkley
- UPenn's Online Books
- the online texts at Bartleby.
- Jack Lynch's Electronic Texts page is by far the most comprehensive listing of e-texts across the disciplines over the long eighteenth century
- See also BCMSV, a searchable database of seventeenth and eighteenth-century verse from the Brotherton Library at Leeds.
Don't forget the manuscript and text collections availabe via Metalib
- 19th Century British Library Newspapers
- American Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)
- American National Biography
- Archive of Americana
- Bibliography of British and Irish History (Brepolis)
- British Literary Manuscripts Online, c.1660-1900
- British Periodicals Collection (ProQuest)
- Cambridge Companions Online: Literature and Classics
- Carlyle Letters Online
- Early English Books Online (EEBO)
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
- Empire Online
- English Poetry Full-text Database
- Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online 1543-1945
- Grand Tour
- Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003
- LION - Literature Online
- Literary Manuscripts: 17th and 18th Century Poetry from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds
- Literary Manuscripts: Victorian Manuscripts from the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library
- London Low Life
- Past Master - English Letters
- Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500-1700
- Project MUSE
- State Papers Online Domestic & Foreign, 1509-1985
- Times digital Archive, 1785-1985
- Victorian Popular Culture
Projects
- The Corvey Project
- H-Net, Humanities and Social Sciences Online - an excellent site covering most aspects of interdiscipinary study, including new publications, reviews, call for papers, conferences, jobs etc.
Research Resources by Subject
American History
Art History
- The British Museum Collection Database
- Collage An image database containing 20,000 works from the Guildhall Library and the Guildhall Art Gallery London
- The Getty Provenance Research
- Scran is a UK charity with a learning image service: 300000 images, clip art, movies and sounds from museums, galleries, archives and the media
- The Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection
- William Hogarth and Eighteenth Century Print Culture
- Web Gallery of Art
- Yale Centre for British Art extensive collection online of high resolution images. These images can be downloaded free of charge if the work is in the public domain and thereby free of all copyright restrictions.
Architecture and Landscape
- Burton Constable Hall
- Castle Howard
- Harewood House
- The History of Gardening Michael Garofalo. Timelines and some useful links
- Lotherton Hall
- National Trust
- Newby Hall
- Stowe
- Temple Newsam
British History
- The Bubble Project Dalhousie University
- British History in the Long Eighteenth Century electronic seminars http://www.history.ac.uk/events/seminars/107/webpage
- Victorian Census Project Digitized source documents relating to nineteeenth-century Great Britain and Ireland
France & French Revolution
The VOS's French Revolution section
Mark Olson's French Revolutionary Pamphlets
Napoleon Bonaparte Internet Guide
Gender, Women's History & Writing
- The Bluestocking Archive
- British Women Romantic Poets 1789-1832
- Chawton House Library Centre for the Study of Early English Women's Writing (1600-1830)
- Women Romantic Era Writers by Adriana Craciun
- Project Electra Kathryn Sutherland, Oxford
- Perdita Project Early Modern Women's Manuscript Compilations. Nottingham Trent and Warwick universities
- Victorian women writers project Electronic editions of texts by a wide range of nineteenth-century women writers.
History of Science & Medicine
- The Wellcome Trust websites
Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) A searchable collection from the U.S National Library of Medicine
Newspapers & Journals
Political Economy
- Many eighteenth and nineteenth-century theorists are included in the extensive Archive for the History of Economic Thought
Romanticism
- Romantic Circles Steve Jones & Neil Fraisat
Scottish Enlightenment
- The Papers of John Reid University of Aberdeen
- The Hume Society - David Hume resources
Slavery and Abolition
General
- Chronological History of Slavery (Americas)
- Studies in the World History of Slavery and Emancipation H-net's online journal
- Library of Congress African/American Mosaic exhibition
- Wilberforce House Kingston Upon Hull
Slave narratives and related writings
- North American Slave Narratives. 200 digitized narratives of fugitive and former slaves from the Documenting the American South project at UNC, Chapel Hill
- Steven Mintz's edited Slave Narratives
- Brycchan Carey's Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano sites
- Phyllis Wheatley's Selected Poems from 1773 edition. University of Oregon
- The Booker T. Washington page. (San Antonio)
- The Frederick Douglass Papers (IUPUI). Includes information about the project and links to electronic editions of Douglass's Narrative and other writings
The History of Mary Prince Internet Public Library, University of Michigan - From the American Studies Hypertext archive at the University of Virginia, electronic editions of Sojourner Truth's Narrative, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Harriet Wilson's Our Nig.
Societies/Institutions
Societies
- American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
- BARS British Association for Romantic Studies
- BSECS The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
- ISECS International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
- The Voltaire Foundation
- York Georgian Society
Institutions
- Birmingham Eighteenth Century Centre, University of Birmingham
- Centre for Romantic Studies, University of Bristol
- The Eighteenth-Century Worlds Research Centre, University of Liverpool
- Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, Queen’s University Belfast
- Shandy Hall, Coxwold, North Yorkshire, maintained by the Laurence Sterne Trust, holds the world's largest collection of material relating to Laurence Sterne.
- UCLA Centre for Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Studies
- Warwick Eighteenth Century Centre