Social History

a colourful drawing of a man wearing an apron and a hat, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with meats

The Forgotten Street Traders of Georgian and Victorian Britain

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Street vendors were an inherent aspect of Victorian Britain, but often forgotten...

Cross-Dressing, Elopement and Travels with Percy Shelley: the extraordinary life of Margaret King

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Whilst digitising our collection, we discovered a publication whose author has a very interesting history...
2 black and white photographs of young girls dressed in costume. Nora's dress is made of newspaper and has black gloves and a paper hat, and Kathleen is adorned in flowers.

The Children of the 1891 Fancy Dress Ball: The Passavant Women

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Miss Nora Passavant dressed as 'The Leeds Daily Papers' at the 1891 Fancy Dress Ball. Joshua King explores the life of Nora and the rest of the Passavant women.
a page of a photograph album featuring a black and white photograph of a young boy dressed all in black with a gnarly cape, sitting with folded arms.

The Children of the 1891 Fancy Dress Ball: Wilfred Nicholson

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The second in our 1891 Fancy Dress Ball series, this time on the life of Wilfred Nicholson who attended dressed as Mephistopheles.

The Children of the 1891 Fancy Dress Ball: The Scarborough Loe’s

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The first in a series exploring the children who attended the Juvenile Fancy Dress Ball at Leeds Town Hall in 1891.

Chimney Sweep Portraits in the Social History Collection

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Explore the portraits in our 'Sweepiana' collection of items relating to chimney sweeps with Leila Prescott.