British and UK Studies

"The Gazetteer for Scotland is a vast geographical encyclopaedia, featuring details of towns, villages, bens and glens from the Scottish Borders to the Northern Isles. The first comprehensive gazetteer produced for Scotland since 1885, it includes tourist attractions, industries and historical sites, together with histories of family names and clans, biographies of famous Scots and descriptions of historical events associated with Scotland."

"This is the official web site of the British Royal Family. Written and managed by the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace, the site aims to provide an authoritative resource of information about the Monarchy and Royal Family, past and present."

"A Vision of Britain through Time brings together historical surveys of Britain to create a record of how the country and its localities have changed."

"Three volumes containing biographies and some engraved portraits of Scotsmen and some women, mostly of the 16th to the 19th centuries. Published in 1875, it includes famous people from different fields, such as literature, politics, philosophy, natural sciences, medicine, religion and fine art. Originally compiled by Robert Chambers (1802-1871)."

"The Biographical Memoirs are recognized as definitive accounts of the life and work of the eminent scientists and engineers who were Fellows or Foreign Members of the Royal Society. All memoirs are free to read and download. The easiest way to find specific memoirs is to use the ‘Advanced Search’ function to search for a specific person or by a keyword (e.g. a scientific area or particular institution). "

"The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540-1835 (CCEd), launched in 1999 and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, makes available and searchable the principal records of clerical careers from over 50 archives in England and Wales with the aim of providing coverage of as many clerical lives as possible from the Reformation to the mid-nineteenth century. The Database fills major gaps in our knowledge of one of the most important professions in early modern England and Wales."

The Dictionary is about people associated with the historic nine counties of Ulster and includes those who were born here, or lived or worked here and who have distinguished themselves in some way.

"The Dictionary of Welsh Biography (DWB) is the starting point for anyone seeking biographical information about persons throughout history whose contribution or prominence has shaped some aspect of the life of Wales, including the impact of Welsh people in the wider world. It provides free access to around 5,000 concise biographical articles in Welsh and English, each fully researched and written by a named specialist author."

"Explore the biographies and interviews of 66 feminists interviewed as part of the Sisterhood and After project."

Useful resource for biographical information from 1853-1923.

"British Accents and Dialects captures and celebrates the diversity of spoken English in the second half of the 20th century."

"The British National Corpus (BNC) is a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources, designed to represent a wide cross-section of British English from the later part of the 20th century, both spoken and written. The latest edition is the BNC XML Edition, released in 2007."

"Scottish Language Dictionaries (SLD) is Scotland’s independent lexicographical body for the Scots language."

"GPC is the only standard historical dictionary of the Welsh language. It is broadly comparable in method and scope to the Oxford English Dictionary."

"The electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (eDIL) is a digital dictionary of medieval Irish. It is based on the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of the Irish Language based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials (1913-1976) which covers the period c.700-c.1700 but incorporates corrections and additions to thousands of entries."

"Dictionaries are an important part of life in today's international, multilingual world. The European Dictionary Portal is here to help you find your way to good, trustworthy online dictionaries of European languages, regardless of whether you are an academic, a translator, a language teacher or simply a language enthusiast. All dictionaries listed here have been handpicked by curators from the European Network of e-Lexicography who are expert lexicographers themselves and who follow well-defined criteria in deciding which dictionaries are included and which not."

"Lexico.com is a new collaboration between Dictionary.com and Oxford University Press (OUP) to help users worldwide with everyday language challenges. Lexico is powered by Oxford’s free English and Spanish dictionaries and features multi-language dictionary, thesaurus, and translation content."

"Scottish Language Dictionaries is the quintessential research organisation for the Scots Language."

BBC Country Profiles "provide an instant guide to history, politics and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions. They also include audio and video clips from BBC archives."

Provides information about UK's geography, people and society, economy, government, communications, etc.

"The websites of all government departments and many other agencies and public bodies have been merged into GOV.UK. Here you can see all news and communications, statistics and consultations."

"Over 1200 maps and plans of the capital: a fascinating collection brought together by the Victorian designer, Frederick Crace."

"The Library’s map collection contains over 1,000,000 sheets of maps, charts and plans as well as thousands of atlases. It is the largest map collection in Wales, and one of the largest in the British Isles. The collection contains a wide range of materials from the latest electronic mapping to 16th century maps and charts on vellum."

"A fascinating sampling of maps depicting places in the United Kingdom."

"In the National Library of Scotland's 'Maps Images' resource you can access and view over 200,000 maps as high-resolution, colour, zoomable images, dating between 1560 and 1970. The main strength of the collection is on British printed mapping, particularly by Ordnance Survey, but the collection includes military maps, estate maps, town plans, coastal charts and county maps."

"Search and browse a range of historical Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) maps and find information on sites, buildings and landmarks of historical interest."

"This selection of maps and views traces the growing awareness of the form of British Isles and their place in the wider world from 800 to 1600."

"The Online Historical Population Reports (OHPR) collection provides online access to the complete British population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1937. The collection goes far beyond the basic population reports with a wealth of textual and statistical material which provide an in-depth view of the economy, society (through births, deaths and marriages) and medicine during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."

"The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), which incorporates the General Register Office (GRO), is an executive agency within the Department of Finance (NI) and was established on 1 April 1996...The Agency is the principal source of Official Statistics and social research on Northern Ireland. These statistics and research not only inform public policy but also academic and private sector research, and contribute to debate in the wider community."

"UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and its recognised national statistical institute."

"Official statistics produced by the National Records of Scotland (NRS)."

"Releases of official statistics and research on Wales."

"Funded by UK Research and Innovation, through the Economic and Social Research Council," (this archive) provides "a Trusted Digital Repository for national data resources including many surveys conducted by the Office for National Statistics, national centres for social research and Census data."

Useful portal to plan your journey. It also has information about buses and trams.

"Find postcode of a location on maps. Find postcode by address or by point doing click on map. Drag to change point."