Now available: Populations Past, a map and analysis of Victorian and Edwardian population. From the about page: “The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of major change in the dynamics of the British population. This was a time of transformation from a relatively ‘high pressure’ demographic regime characterised by medium to high birth and death rates to a ‘low pressure’ regime of low birth and death rates, a transformation known as the ‘demographic transition’. This transition was not uniform across England and Wales: certain places and social groups appear to have led the declines while others lagged behind. Exploring these geographical patterns can provide insights into the process of change and the influence of economic and geographical factors. This website allows users to create and view maps of different demographic measures and related socio-economic indicators every 10 years between 1851 and 1911. These include fertility, childhood mortality, marriage, migration status, household compositions, age-structure, occupational status and population density. Brief explanations of each measure are included, indicating how they are calculated and explaining how they relate to other measures.”
England
Northampton Borough Council: Museum creates digital memories of the First World War
Northampton Borough Council: Museum creates digital memories of the First World War. “A First World War digital archive including images of museum objects and family stories relating to Northampton has been created by Northampton Museums and Art Gallery. The archive can be found on Instagram and Flickr, where viewers can browse through a range of objects, photographs, documents and oral histories and share their stories and experiences with others.”
BBC: Google’s tax bill rises to £50m
BBC: Google’s tax bill rises to £50m. “The technology giant’s annual accounts show that the company will pay corporation taxes of £49.3m on UK profits of £202.4m. Although the tax figure is the highest the company has paid – and up on the £36.4m it paid last year – it will be likely to reignite the debate about taxation and digital firms. The total value of Google’s sales in the UK is about £5.7bn a year.”
British Library: Percy Grainger’s collection of ethnographic wax cylinders
This is from February but I missed it. From the British Library: Percy Grainger’s collection of ethnographic wax cylinders. “The British Library is pleased to make available online around 350 English folk songs recorded by composer Percy Grainger in different regions of England between 1906 and 1909. Thanks to the generous support of the National Folk Music Fund, these sound recordings have been catalogued and indexed by librarian, researcher and folklorist Steve Roud, author of Folk Song in England (Faber & Faber, 2017). Roud has also married them up with Grainger’s transcriptions of the songs, where these exist, on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website, thanks to their digitisation of the Percy Grainger Manuscript Collection.”
Ordnance Survey: Tens of thousands of unseen post-war images of Manchester unveiled online for first time
Ordnance Survey: Tens of thousands of unseen post-war images of Manchester unveiled online for first time. “New historical photo mapping web app Timepix… was launched in Manchester this week, giving the public the chance to explore how their streets looked in yesteryear.” The project is limited to Manchester for now will extend to other UK cities in the future.
BT: First World War hospital admissions data goes online
BT: First World War hospital admissions data goes online. “Families will be able to find out about their wounded relatives’ treatment during the First World War through a hospital admissions archive which has gone online. Historical records featuring the admissions registers of soldiers cared for by veterans’ charity Erskine from 1916 to 1936 have now been fully digitised.”
Polonsky Pre-1200 Project: we’re halfway there (British Library)
British Library: Polonsky Pre-1200 Project: we’re halfway there. “From illuminated Gospel-books to heavenly depictions of the constellations, from texts in Old English to works on the natural world, the first fruits of our exciting collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France are ripe for the picking. The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200 has reached its halfway milestone with 400 manuscripts made before 1200 now digitised, newly catalogued and available to view online.”
