British History Online - FREE!

A great British History online initiative.

British History online is a digital collection of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain, Ireland, and the British world, with a special focus on the period 1300 to 1800. The BHO collection includes over 1,280 volumes of primary content and secondary sources.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, BHO have announced that they are extending free access to cover ALL their online content, including the 20% previously behind a paywall. From

Friday 27 March until 31 July 2020, transcribed texts of an additional 200 volumes will be available in full to individual users who visit the BHO site.

The extra 200 volumes now available are mainly made up of two important series:

the Calendar of Close Rolls, covering the reigns of Henry III to Henry VII (1244 to 1509),
the Calendar of State Papers Domestic, covering the reigns of Edward VI to Anne, 1547 to 1704) In both these cases BHO offers the calendar of the original records, not the original records themselves.

The calendars provide a full summary of the contents of the original documents and are wholly sufficient for research in almost all cases. The remainder of the now free BHO content comprises the following eight series:

Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, covering the period 1586-1606, in 13 volumes
Calendar of State Papers, Scotland, covering the period 1547-1588, in 11 volumes
Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, in 1 volume
Calendar of Home Office Papers, George III, covering the period 1760-1775, in 4 volumes
Calendar of Border Papers, covering the period 1560-1603, in 2 volumes
Calendar of the Committee for the Advance of Money, covering the period 1642-55, in 4 volumes
Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, covering the period 1643-60, in 5 volumes
Calendar of Patent Rolls, covering the reigns of Henry III, Edward I and Edward II (1216 to 1307), which appear in 10 volumes. These are the first output in a new ongoing project to digitise and publish the Calendar of Patent Rolls up to and including the reign of Henry VII (1509);

You can find out more about all the resources mentioned here, and more besides, by visiting the BHO blog

BHO have also introduced a range of subject guides designed to help people use their resources. 5 research topics are covered so far, including Local History. The guides have been written by external users and BHO are keen to add more. So if you’re a historian with expertise in in medieval or early modern British history and would like to write a guide, please do get in touch: british-history@sas.ac.uk

As well as this newly released free content, BHO includes many primary and secondary resources which are permanently free. Highlights include; Journals of the House of Lords and the House of Commons; English Quarter Sessions petitions 1577-1799, 175 volumes of the Victoria County History and 60 volumes of the Survey of London. There is also a wealth of permanently free content in the categories of datasets, maps and guides & calendars.

Spring 2020

British History Online - FREE!