Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The aim of the project was to improve access to local and trade directories for the period 1750-1919 by making a substantial collection of English and Welsh directories available online as a Digital Library of Historical Directories. This digital resource comprises in total some 600 directories, covering every English county together with Wales, and ranging widely over the period 1750-1919 (the latter cut-off point chosen for copyright reasons). There is a particular focus on the 1850s, 1890s and 1910s, with at least one directory provided for each county in each of these decades. The digitisation of the volumes involved a two-stage process, in which (1) the hard-copy source was scanned to produce a graphic image of each page, and then (2) those images were processed using OCR software to generate a machine-readable text file.An online version of this resource can be found on the Website of the University of Leicester.
This data collection includes the following directories:- Kelly's Directory of Staffordshire (1896)- Kelly's Directory of Warwickshire (1896)- Kelly's Directory of Worcestershire (1896)- Peck's Circular Trades Directory and detailed buyers' guide to the manufactures of Birmingham and district (1896-97)- The Wolverhampton Red Book and Directory (1897-98)- Kelly's Directory of Worcestershire (1900)- The Court Guide and County Blue Book of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Staffordshire. A fashionable record, professional register, and general survey of the counties (1902)- Kelly's Directory of Staffordshire (1904)- Littlebury's Directory of the City of Worcester, and towns of Malvern, Droitwich and Pershore, followed by the parishes and villages within a radius of ten miles of the city (1908)- Kelly's Directory of Staffordshire (1912)- Kelly's Directory of Warwickshire (1912)- Kelly's Directory of Worcestershire (1912)- Spennell's (Annual) Directory of the City of Coventry and District (1912-13)- Bennett's Business Directory for Staffordshire (1914)- Bennett's Business Directory for Warwickshire (1914)- Bennett's Business Directory for Worcestershire (1914)- The Wolverhampton Red Book and Directory (1914)
Main Topics:The directories included are of many different kinds, commonly embracing trade, commercial, and private resident directories, together with gazetteers, almanacs, official information, etc. For the purposes of deposit in the UK Data Archive, the collection has been divided into 35 studies on a regional and temporal basis.
No sampling (total universe)
Compilation or synthesis of existing material
