Britain - History - Modern History primary sources - Subject and Research Guides at Macquarie University

Library databases

British and Irish women's letters and diaries
Date range: 16th Century to 20th Century
Geographical focus: Britain
Over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters by approximately 500 women.
Social and cultural history: letters and diaries online
Date range: 16th Century to 20th Century
Geographical range: Britain, US
"Database of English language letters, diaries, autobiographies, oral histories, and other personal narratives providing insight into history dating from the 1550s to the present. Documents included in the index and full-text collections are indexed for subjects, historical events, personal events, places, and dates."
Empire Online
This fulltext database offers approximately 60,000 images of original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. The five sections cover Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class and Colonialism, c1783-1969.

London Low Life : street culture, social reform and the Victorian underworld
Date range: 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries
Geographical focus: London
"Content includes: fast literature; street ephemera (posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides); penny fiction; cartoons; a complete collection of Tallis' Street Views; chapbooks; street cries; Swell's guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens; tourist guides and topography; and manuscripts of George Gissing."
National Digital Learning Resources Network
There are more than 16,000 digital resources in the NDLRN; they are free for use in all Australian schools. The resources are accessible to teachers through portals and Scootle.

The Making of Modern Law: legal treatises 1800-1926
Date range: 19th Century, early 20th Century
Geographical focus: US, Britain
"Features a fully searchable database of more than 22,000 legal works on US and British law published from 1800 through 1926, including casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches and more."

Victorian popular culture
Date range: 19th Century to 1930s
Geographical range: Britain, US, Europe
"Victorian popular culture is a database in the subject area of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth century." Material includes pamphlets, posters, postcards, photographs, books and videos. Database is divided into sections on magic and spiritualism; cicuses; music halls and theatres and early cinema.
Popular culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 : Rock and roll, counterculture, peace and protest
Date range: 1950 to 1975
Geographical focus: US, Britain
"Topics include changing lifestyles, student protests, civil rights, consumerism, nuclear disarmament, and the Vietnam War. The database contains original archival material, including colour images of manuscript and rare printed material, as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia. "

Online sources

British History Online
Date range: 11th to 19th Centuries
Geographical focus: Britain
Includes primary and secondary sources relating to British History, including maps, state papers, English Heritage's survey of London, letters and diaries. Run by the Institute of Historical Research.
Records of the Parliaments of Scotland
Date range: 1235-1707
Geographical focus: Scotland
"A fully searchable database containing the proceedings of the Scottish parliament from the first surviving act of 1235 to the union of 1707. "
Bess of Hardwick's Letters
Date range: 1550s-1607
Geographical focus: Britain
Transcripts and digitisations of original letters from Bess of Hardwick, a prominent woman from Elizabethan England.
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913
Date range: 1674-1913
Geographical focus: Britain
Contains the records of "197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court." Also includes text on the historical background to crime and justice in Britain, as well as the history of London.
British Newspaper Archives
Date range: 18th Century to 20th Centuries
Geographical range: Britain
Digitised versions of historical newspapers from throughout Britain. This site requires a paid subscription to access articles.
British Periodicals Online | National Library of Australia
Date range: 1680s-1930s
Geographical focus: Britain
Digitised historical British journals, covering subject areas including literature, history, science, philosophy and the arts. An NLA library card is required to access this collection (free for Australian residents).
Hansard
Date range: 1803-2005
Geographical focus: Britain
"This site has been produced from digitised editions of Commons and Lords Hansard, the Official Report of debates in Parliament."
Margaret Thatcher Foundation
Date range: 1945-1990
Geographical focus: Britain
Free access to historical documents relating to Margaret Thatcher, including speeches and interviews, document archive, photos, video and commentary.
Chatham House Archive | National Library of Australia
Date range: 1920-2008
Geographical focus: Britain
"Contains nearly 90 years of research, expert analysis and commentary, subject indexed briefing papers, special reports, pamphlets, conference papers and monographs from the archives of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House)." An NLA library card is required to access this collection (free for Australian residents).