Tag Archives: British Online Archives

Trial – Shipping records and trade statistics from British Online Archives

Trial,

Bodleian Libraries users have trial access until 4 March 2026 to three collections of primary source material in British Online Archives:

Bristol Shipping Records: imports and exports, 1770-1917: Containing over 28,000 images, the resource charts nearly 150 years of merchant shipping to and from the city of Bristol. It contains Bristol Presentments, Bills of Entry derived from the reports and manifests of ships that docked in the city. These documents offer unique insights into British maritime history and the goods traded in Bristol from 1770 to 1917. Significantly, the sources in this collection reveal how the city’s economy responded to the gradual abolition of slavery throughout the British empire during the early 1800s.

The collection provides an overview of how Bristol, and the wider economy of the United Kingdom, interacted with and influenced global trade networks throughout much of the modern period.

British Mercantile Trade Statistics 1662-1809: Containing over 47,000 images drawn from files at The National Archives (UK), the resource charts nearly 150 years of British trade and shipping. This collection includes trade ledgers, registers, and indexes that supply detailed statistical data on trade throughout the “long eighteenth century”. The collection also includes the official registers of “Mediterranean passes”: the registers detail which vessels were issued passes, their port of embarkation and destinations, as well as additional information on their size, crew, and defences.

The resource will appeal to those investigating the colonial, economic, and maritime dimensions of British history throughout this period. It should also interest those exploring broader themes, such as the escalation of global trade and the development of the fiscal-military state.

Liverpool Shipping Records: imports and exports 1820-1900: Containing over 85,000 document images, the resource charts 80 years of merchant shipping to and from the city of Liverpool. This collection comprises Bills of Entry derived from the reports and manifests of ships that docked in the city. These detailed documents offer unique insights into Liverpool’s maritime history and the goods traded in the city throughout most of the nineteenth century.

This collection provides a survey of how Liverpool, and the wider economy of the United Kingdom, interacted with and influenced global trade networks.

Please send any feedback on these trials to Isabel Holowaty.

New resources – United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG) archives

New resource,

We are pleased to announce that Oxford researchers now have online access to 14 collections of the Anglican missionary archive, the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG), via the British Online Archives platform. Previously only available in the Weston Library, the digitised material can now be accessed throughout the University and remotely with the Oxford SSO.

The USPG is a UK-based Anglican missionary organisation, founded in 1701, which sent missionaries to many parts of the world and was involved in educational,  charitable and medical work as well as evangelization. The material also throws light on social conditions, travel and daily life abroad from the view point of British missionaries and their families.

The digitized material is relevant to British, Commonwealth and global history, covering the 17th to mid-20th centuries. It has been organised into 14 collections which can be found via SOLO or Databases A-Z:

  1. America in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1635-1928
  2. ‘Bray Schools’ in Canada, America and the Bahamas, 1645-1900
  3. Indigenous Cultures and Christian Conversion in Ghana and Sierra Leone, 1700-1850
  4. Colonial missionaries’ papers from America and the West Indies, 1701-1870
  5. The West Indies in records from colonial missionaries, 1704-1950
  6. Canada in records from colonial missionaries, 1722-1952
  7. Indian and Sri Lankan records from colonial missionaries, 1770-1931
  8. Australia in records from colonial missionaries, 1808-1967
  9. South Africa in records from colonial missionaries, 1819-1900
  10. New Zealand & Polynesian records from colonial missionaries, 1838-1958
  11. Tanzania and Malawi in records from colonial missionaries, 1857-1965
  12. Colonial women missionaries of the Committee for Women’s Work, 1861-1967
  13. Ghana in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1886-1951
  14. ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’: Missionaries in Asia during the World Wars, 1914-1946

Read more about the types of materials, topics covered, and geographical reach on the History Faculty Library blog post.

Trial – Records from Bethlem Royal Hospital, 1559-1932 (until 12 October 2023)

Trial,

We have trial access to Records from Bethlem Royal Hospital, 1559-1932 through British Online Archives until 12 October 2023. This resource is useful for the study of mental health care throughout the ages.

Bethlem Royal Hospital is a psychiatric facility in London. It was established as a priory of the Order of St Mary of Bethlehem in 1247, before beginning to care for mentally ill patients sometime in the 14th century. Often referred to colloquially as ‘Bedlam’—and generally accepted to be the origin of the very same noun—past incarnations of the institution were infamous for their questionable diagnosis of mental illness and poor treatment of patients.

This collection contains four centuries’ and 130,000 images’ worth of records from Bethlem. The records are diverse in both form and subject matter. They include: voluntary and criminal admission registers; discharge and death registers; male and female patient casebooks; minutes of the Court of Governors; and staff salary books. All handwritten items have been fully transcribed.

Scholars and students alike will find that, together, the records provide a unique insight into the evolution of so-called lunacy laws—from an early reliance on control of the mentally ill through coercion and restraint to the later emergence of doctrines of self-discipline and moral management.

Please email feedback to Isabel Holowaty.

Trial – British Online Archives (until 31 March 2022)

Trial,

We now have access to the entire British Online Archives platform until 31 March 2022, courtesy of Microform Academic Publishers.

A resource providing access to over 3 million records drawn from both private and public archives. There are over 80 collections with thematically organised records covering 1,000 years of world history, from politics and warfare to slavery and medicine. Includes: Prosecuting the Holocaust, Colonial Law in Africa, Liverpool and Bristol shipping records, West Indies slavery and slave trade records, Missionary archives.

 

Please send feedback to Isabel.Holowaty@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.