Study title

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:- Pigot's Directory of Buckinghamshire (1830-31)- Berkshire Commercial Directory (1833)- Kelly's Berkshire Directory (1848)- History, Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Oxford;  comprising  a  general  survey  of  the  County  ...  to  which  is  subjoined a list of the seats of the nobility and gentry (1852)- Slater's  Directory  of  Berkshire (1852)- Musson  and  Craven's  Commercial  Directory  of  the  County  of  Buckingham  and  the  Town  of  Windsor;  containing  an  alphabetical  list  of  the  nobility,  gentry,  merchants,  professions,  trades, etc., and separate historical and topographical descriptions of all the towns, parishes (1853)- The Post Office Directory of Buckinghamshire / ed. By E. R. Kelly...