What's on This Page?
In the boxes on this page, you will find links and citations to information resources on the history of the British Isles.
For advice on finding books on your topic, see the 'How to Find Books' tab of the World History (generally) research guide.
World History by Region: British Isles
A dictionary of British history.
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2015.
The Oxford companion to British history. 2nd ed.
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Oxford companion to Irish history.
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Oxford companion to Scottish history.
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Oxford dictionary of national biography.
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-
Reader's guide to British history.
New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2003.
- Ref DA34 .R43 2003 v.1-2
The Routledge dictionary of modern British history.
London; New York: Routledge, 2006.
- Ref DA529 .P58 2006
The Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England.
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Histories:
The Oxford history of Britain. Rev. ed.
London; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Contents: 1 Roman Britain (c.55 BC - c. AD 440) Peter Salway; 2 The Anglo-Saxon Period (c. 440-1066) John Blair; 3 The Early Middle Ages (1066-1290) John Gillingham; 4 The Later Middle Ages (1290-1485) Ralph A. Griffiths; 5 The Tudor Age (1485-1603) John Guy; 6 The Stuarts (1603-1688) John Morrill; 7 The Eighteenth Century (1688-1789) Paul Langford; 8 Revolution and the Rule of Law (1789-1851) Christopher Harvie; 9 The Liberal Age (1851-1914) H. C. G. Matthew; 10 The Twentieth Century (1914-2000) Kenneth O. Morgan; Epilogue (2000-2010) Kenneth O. Morgan.
- Main Library DA30 .O93 2010
British historical statistics.
Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
- Ref HA1134 .M58 1988
- Major economic and social statistical series for the British Isles from the twelfth century up until 1980-81. British Historical Statistics is the successor to the Abstract of British Historical Statistics and the Second Abstract of British Historical Statistics. Covers Population and vital statistics; Labour force; Agriculture; Fuel and energy; Metals; Textiles; Building; Miscellaneous industrial statistics; External trade; Transport and communications; Public finance; Financial institutions; Consumption; Prices; Miscellaneous statistics; and National accounts.
Atlases & Gazetteers:
The Routledge atlas of British history. 5th ed.
London; New York: Routledge, 2011.
- Sciences & Engineering G1811.S2 G5 2011
An atlas of Irish history. 3rd ed.
London; New York: Routledge, 2005.
- Sciences & Engineering G1831.S1 E3 2005
Dictionary of British Place Names.
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
The Ordnance Survey gazetteer of Great Britain:
all names from the 1:50,000 Landranger map series.
Maybush, Southampton: Ordnance Survey; London: Macmillan, 1992.
- Special Collections, El Norte Atlases DA640 .G76 1992
Additional Reference Sources for World History by Region (British Isles):
Additional encyclopedias are listed on the United States History research guide, under the "Reference Sources" → "Encyclopedias & Dictionaries" tab.
Additional encyclopedias are listed on the World History (generally) research guide, under the "Reference Sources" → "Encyclopedias & Dictionaries" tab.
Additional encyclopedias are listed on the World History by Period research guide, under the "Prehistory & Ancient" tab, the "Medieval History" tab, etc.
Additional encyclopedias are listed on the World History by Region research guide, under the "Africa" tab, the "Asia" tab, etc.
Additional encyclopedias are listed on the World History by Topic research guide, under the "Commerce, Commodities & Material Culture" tab, the "Empires, Borderlands & their Legacies" tab, etc.
- Bibliography of British and Irish History This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
The Bibliography of British and Irish History provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British Empire and Commonwealth, during all periods for which written documentation is available - from 55BC to the present. - Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
A bibliographic database containing citations to articles on the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada), primarily from 1450 to the present.
Primary sources provide immediate, firsthand testimony or direct evidence concerning an event or topic.
Examples of primary sources include letters and diaries; photographs, audio and motion picture recordings; transcribed speeches; books, newspapers and magazines published during the period under consideration; government documents and other publications; oral histories, autobiographies and memoirs; and even artifacts, like clothing, furniture, and other items of material culture from the period.
- 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Newspapers and news pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817), this collection represents the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media, made available by the British Library. - Archives Direct This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
A suite of collections from The National Archives, Kew – the official archive of the United Kingdom. Containing diplomatic correspondence, letters, reports, surveys, material from newspapers, statistical analyses, published pamphlets, ephemera, military papers, profiles of prominent individuals, maps and many other types of document, it consists of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the British state’s point of view.
bpi1700: British Printed Images to 1700.
An extensive digital library of prints and book illustrations from early modern Britain.
British cabinet papers, 1880-1916.
Public Record Office class CAB 37
Harvester Press Microform, 1980.
- Microfilm Area DA25 .Z5 1980
British Cartoon Archive.
An archive of over 200,000 pieces of cartoon artwork, dating from 1904, maintained by the University of Kent’s (Canterbury UK) Templeman Library.
British Government Publications. (Rutgers University)
Librarians at Rutgers University Libraries maintain an excellent guide to finding British Government Publications.
British History Online. (BHO)
A digital collection of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, and the British world, with a special focus on the period 1300 to 1800. The BHO collection includes over 1,280 volumes of primary content and secondary sources.
♦ Until 30 September 2020 all transcribed BHO content is freely available for individual users.
The British Library. Archives and Manuscripts catalogue.
A hugely rich resource, with material dating from ancient to modern times.
The British Library. Image Collection.
From the British Library, over one million images made available for public use via Flickr.
The British Library. Digitised Manuscripts.
The Digitised Manuscripts web pages give access to manuscripts held at the British Library, with their descriptions These include an extensive collection of Greek manuscripts, plus the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Old English Hexateuch.
British Movietone Newsreel Archive.
Selections from the British Movietone newsreel archive, including newsreel clips and footage captured during the company’s ninety year history (1895-1986).
British Pathé.
Since the invention of the moving image in the 1890's, British Pathé has recorded aspects of global culture and news for the cinema in documentaries, newsreels, serials and films.
- British Periodicals This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Searchable database of more than 160 journals from the microfilm collection Early British Periodicals, the equivalent 5,238 printed volumes containing approximately 3.1 million images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts, and the social sciences. - C19: The Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Nineteenth century books, journals, magazines, official documents, newspapers, and archives. Includes The Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index, and Periodicals Index Online.
- Colonial America.[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Colonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period. From Adam Matthew.
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
From the first book published in English through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, this collection contains over 96,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised edition. - Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
The Text Creation Partnership creates standardized, encoded electronic text editions of early print books. It transcribes and marks up the text from the millions of page images in ProQuest's Early English Books Online, Gale Cengage's Eighteenth Century Collections Online, and Readex's Evans Early American Imprints.
Early English newspapers: bibliography and guide to the microfilm collection.
Representing a very large microfilm collection of 18th- and early 19th-century English newspapers; the microfilm reels represented in this guide are held at UCLA.
- Ref PN5114 .C68 1983
- East India Company This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
From 16th-century origins as a trading venture to the East Indies, through to its rise as the world’s most powerful company and de facto ruler of India, to its demise amid allegations of greed and corruption – the East India Company was an extraordinary force in global history for three centuries. This digital resource allows students and researchers to access a vast and remarkable collection of primary source documents from the India Office Records held by the British Library, the single most important archive for the study of the East India Company. - Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Based on the English Short Title Catalogue, ECCO gives access to digital images from works published in the UK (and elsewhere) during the 18th century, including books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more. - Empire Online This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
A database of original documents relating to Empire Studies from 1492 held in libraries and archives around the world. - English Broadside Ballad Archive This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Created by the Early Modern Center in the English Department at UCSB, the English Broadside Ballad Archive (formerly, Pepys Ballad Archive) holds over 1,800 broadside ballads, mostly of the seventeenth century and mostly in black-letter print. - English Short Title Catalogue This link opens in a new windowProvides extensive descriptions and holdings information for letterpress materials printed in Great Britain or any of its dependencies, as well as for materials printed in English anywhere else in the world. Includes all recorded English monographs printed between 1475 and 1700.
- European History Primary Sources. (EHPS)The European University Institute's (Florence, Italy) EHPS provides an index to digital repositories that contain primary sources for the history of Europe.
- Foreign Office Files for China This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Foreign Office Files for China collection makes available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1949 and 1980.
- Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Primary source documents from the edges of the anglophone world, 1650-1920. Discover European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia through documents that reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in these areas. From Adam Matthew.
- Georgian Papers Online This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
The catalogue of the Georgian Papers held in the Royal Archives and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the Georgian Papers Online comprises papers from George III, as well as papers from Kings George I, George II, George IV and William IV. - Grand Tour This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Manuscripts, visual and printed works on the history of travel during 1550-1850 from libraries and archives around the world, including the Beinecke Library, the Paul Melon Centre, the Chaney Library, the British Library, and other selected sources. Topics include European political and religious life; British diplomacy; material culture; everyday life; and life at court. 1550-1850.
- HansardThe official report of all parliamentary debates in the House of Commons and the House of Lords from the past two hundred years.
- House of Commons Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
The House of Commons Parliamentary Papers cover the historical record of Britain, its former Colonies and the wider world. Our subscription covers the papers of the 19th century (1801-1900).
Irish History Online. (IHO)
The national bibliography of Irish history, IHO is part of a European network of national historical bibliographies from fourteen countries. Irish History Online is an authoritative listing (in progress) of what has been written about Irish history from earliest times to the present.
London Lives, 1690 to 1800: Crime, Poverty and Social Policy in the Metropolis.
A database of primary sources from eighteenth-century London, with a particular focus on plebeian Londoners.
The National Archives. Discovery Catalogue.
Access records held by The National Archives of the United Kingdom and more than 2,500 other archives across the country.
The National Archives. Online Collections.
Online resources from the The National Archives of the United Kingdom. Includes such records as British Army casualty lists, 1939-1945; British Army war diaries, 1914-1922; the Domesday Book; Merchant seamen registers, 1835-1857; Railway employment records, 1833-1956; and Victorian prisoners’ photograph albums, 1872-1873.
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
UCSB has access to Archive 1: British Politics and Society; Archive 2: Asia West & Diplomacy Cultural Exchange; Archive 3: British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture; and Archive 4: Corvey Collection of European Literature.
The Parliament rolls of medieval England, 1275-1504.
Leicester: Scholarly Digital Editions, 2005.
Full text and translation of the meetings of the English parliament from Edward I to Henry VII. CD-ROM
- Media Collection JN515 .P37 2005
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913.
A searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, documenting 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.
Rerum Britannicarum Medii Ævi scriptores = Chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages.
London, 1858-1911.
- Main Library DA25 .B5, 99 vols. in 162 parts
- Times (London) Digital Archive This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
The Times of London newspaper archive from 1785-2013. - Victorian Popular Culture Series[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Source material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. UCSB has access to Module I: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Module III: Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; and Module IV: Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema. - U.K. Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Access to the records of the House of Commons and the House of Lords from the past two hundred years, with a ProQuest search interface.
- History: Britain & Ireland: Primary Sources by TypeMore links to primary source collections, from the University of Washington.
- Association of College and Research Libraries. European Studies Section. (ESS) European Studies: Regional and Historical Resources.Look for the guide covering:
- British Studies (England, Scotland and Wales)