Research help
Contact us if you would like help using our microform collections. We are happy to help.
Microform
Find out more about our microfilm and microfiche holdings and facilities, and get help on finding and using the collections.
Microform collections
The library microform collection consists mainly of films and fiche of important source collections from outside London. It includes materials from Windsor Castle, the Bodleian Library, Longleat House, Harvard, Yale and the Huntington Library. Other major holdings include substantial parts of Complete State Papers Domestic and Early English Newspapers.
Microforms are included on the catalogue (IHR classmarks beginning X). Major holdings are listed below. Microforms for Historians helps to locate indexes and finding aids.
A microform reader is available on the lower ground floor. Most of the microfilm collections are available on the first and lower ground floors. Some collections are in closed access, please see catalogue for details. You are welcome to use the equipment with privately owned film or fiche. Readers can save files, and printing is available.
You don’t need to book, but if you are planning a special visit to use the microform reader, you are welcome to contact us ahead to reserve the reader.
Highlights from the Collections
From the Public Record Office
From the Archives of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat
Most published sets including:
- Carteret papers (c.1615-1727)
- Coventry papers
- Devereux papers
- Dudley papers
- Miscellaneous manuscripts: Accounts & expenses of noble households, 15th-17th centuries
- Portland papers [Harley papers]
- Prior papers
- Seymour papers
- Talbot papers (1574-1608)
- Thynne papers (c.1542-1780)
- Whitelocke papers
- Glastonbury Abbey documents: Court and compotus rolls
From the Bodleian Library, Oxford
Extensive selections of manuscripts from:
From the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle
- Cabinet reports by Prime Ministers to the Crown 1837-1867; [&] 1868-1916
- Changes of government, cabinet reconstructions and political crises, 1837-1901
- Correspondence of Sir Robert Peel, 1841-46. (Prime Minister's Correspondence with the Crown)
- The Melbourne papers
- Papers of Queen Victoria on foreign affairs, parts 1-6
Other General Collections
Selections from:
- Hastings Collection of manuscripts from the Huntington Library, California
- Crown servants:
- Sir William Clarke manuscripts from Worcester College, Oxford, 1640-1664
- British political and social cartoons 1655-1832, not in the British Museum (Library of Congress)
- Politics in the age of revolution, 1715-1848. Pt 1, The papers of Edmund Burke, 1729-1797, from Sheffield Archives
- Papers of Sir James Graham, Home Secretary, statesman and reformer, from Cumbria Record Office.
Legal History
British Ecclesiastical History
- Act books of the archbishops of Canterbury, 1663-1914, ... from Lambeth Palace Library
- Registers of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 13th-17th centuries
- Church, authority and power in medieval and early modern Britain: the Episcopal Registers:
- Part 1, Registers of the archbishops of York, 1215-1650
- Part 2, .... Lincoln, 1209-1654
- Part 3, .... Coventry and Lichfield, 1295-1632; Carlisle,1292-1656; Chester, 1541-1652, and Durham, 1283-1672
- Part 4, .... Salisbury, 1297-1689
- Part 5, .... London, 1304-1660
- Part 6, .... Christ Church Cathedral Priory, Canterbury, 1284-1661
- Part 7, .... Ely, 1337-1619; Oxford, 1592-1663; and Wales, 1389-1705
- Part 8, .... Chichester, 1396-1675; Gloucester, 1541-1681; and Rochester, 1319-1683
- Papers of the York Court of High Commission c. 1560-1641, from the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research
- The papers of Archbishop Wake : 1683-1727 from Christ Church, Oxford
Ireland
