Skip to main content

British Online Archives: Homepage

Making Humanities Accessible

Boasting more than five million records covering over 500 years of history, BOA's extensive digital archive offers unique insights into global events, trends, and themes.

Latest Collections

View Collections
Coloured illustration of a British town being bombed. On the left a black and white soldier points to the sky.

Licensed to access Britain Under Threat: Civil Defence in the Era of Total War, 1914-1989

1914   1989
Illustration of The View of Cape Town, Table Bay

Licensed to access British Colonial Rule in the Cape of Good Hope and Basutoland, 1854–1910

1854   1910
Painting by artist Thomas Luny in 1788 of East India Company's Ships

Licensed to access British Mercantile Trade Statistics, 1662–1809

1662   1808
A black and white image of nurses wearing masks.

Licensed to access Pandemics, Society, and Public Health, 1517–1925

1517   1925
;

Latest Posts

View all Posts  
A list written in cursive handwriting, of enslaved Africans released from a slave ship by the Royal Navy.

Document of the Week: List of “Liberated Africans” in Sierra Leone, 1808

Mary Wills
Published 3rd February, 2025 3 min read
A monochrome photograph of a globe in the background and a wooden gavel in the foreground.

Colonial Law in Africa, 1808–1919, Is Now UV-enabled!

British Online Archives
Published 29th January, 2025 2 min read
ntrance gate to the Auschwitz concentration camp, with the infamous slogan Arbeit macht frei above it.

80 Years Since the Liberation of Auschwitz

Chloe Haney
Published 27th January, 2025 4 min read
A black and white document with a large capitalised title that reads The Adventures of an American Housewife in London. Beneath the title, there are two columns of text printed in a heavy typeface.

Document of the Week: “The Adventures Of An American Housewife In London”

Tommy Dolan
Published 27th January, 2025 3 min read

Licensing Options

Institutional Licenses

If you are a librarian, or an academic, who would like your university to either trial or purchase any of our collections, then please get in touch.

Enquiries & Trials  Licensing Information 

Single User Licenses

If you are a student or researcher who would like to access one or more collections for a short period, then please explore our collections.

Explore  Licensing Information 

About us

British Online Archives (BOA) is one of the UK’s leading academic publishers and online repositories. 

Hosting over five million records, carefully sourced from private and public archives, such as The National Archives (UK) and British Library, BOA’s specially curated primary source collections cover over 500 years of world history. They boast extensive documentation from across the globe, providing invaluable source material for students and researchers working within a wide range of scholarly disciplines, including history, politics, sociology, and international relations. Our unique digital holdings offer insights into global historical events and trends, typically through a British lens. They serve to broaden our understanding of history, and help us to make sense of contemporary social, cultural, economic, and political landscapes.

Explore All Collections