Top 5 Resources for Teachers

  5 Resources 1

If you’re starting a project at school about your local area or local history the Hull History Centre is a gold mine of information. If you haven’t used an Archive or Local Studies Library before though, it can be daunting because there is almost too much to look at.

At the suggestion of a local teacher we’ve put together a set of Top 5 resources you can use to start off your research

   1.  Trade/Street Directories
We have these dating back to the late 18th century and they are full of useful information about the jobs people did and where they lived. It can be really useful for family history and local history as you can find out who lived in a particular house. They are available in the searchroom, but there isn’t one for every year as they were put together by public subscription.

   2.  The Census
We have the census available to view on microfilm from 1841-1901. You can search by street in our indexes or use ancestry library (free on our computers) to look up a name and find the original on microfilm.

   3.  Hull Daily Mail
The Hull Daily Mail is the longest running Hull newspaper and we have all of them (dating back to 1885) on microfilm for you to view. Although the paper is currently very locally focussed, it used to have lots of international news as well.

   4.  Maps
In the library we have a variety of maps available including Victorian and early 20th century ordnance survey maps and medieval to modern maps of Hull and it’s different areas. You can also use the map index to look up a street to find the most recent map of that immediate area.

   5.  Photographs and Illustrations
We have an illustrations index in the library which you can use to find pictures of places, people or events. We also have a couple of photographic collections from the city council which show houses in need of reparation or due for demolition from 1890s – 1920s and again post-war.

Before you visit please check out our ‘Planning your visit page’ it has lots of information about fees and charges and procedures and can save you a lot of time (and in some cases money!).

We have also started running tours/inductions and ‘intro to archives’ sessions for teachers. Please get in touch if you’d like to sign up for one of these.