British Online Archives are exhibiting at ER&L (23rd-26th March). We hope to see you at our booth, 214! Find out more. ✕

British Online Archives: Homepage

Making Humanities Accessible

Explore Themes View Collections

Browse by Themes

View all Themes

Illustration shows a restaurant scene with men and women dancing in the background. Shows upper class people in fashionable 1920s fashion.

Culture and Society

1907 photgraph showing women from the Women's Freedom League holding posters that state Women Demand The Vote and Votes For Women.

Politics and Social Movements

Black and white photograph of a statue of a freed slave in Barbados

Slavery and Abolition

Prince of Wales' welcome reception in India in 1906. Illustration shows elephant and people marching next to it.

Colonialism and Empire

Two pamphlet covers on Britain's Economy. The left side has The National Budget 1950/51 pamphlet cover. The right side has The Pound and Our Future pamphlet cover with a large illustration of the £ sign.

Economics

An engraving of a medieval missionary discovering the point where the Earth and sky meet. The Sun, Moon and Stars are shown.

Philosophy and Religion

International Relations

Illustration published in The Illustrated War News on 24 March 1915 depicting the trenches during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle

War, Security, and Intelligence

Explore Themes

Latest Collections

View Collections

Licensed to access Illustrated London News, 1842–2003

1842 2003

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

;

View Collections

Latest Posts

View all Posts

An advertisement for BOA's attendance at the ER&L 20th Annual Library Conference held at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center.

British Online Archives Exhibiting at ER&L 2025!

British Online Archives

Published 21st March, 2025 1 min read

A photo of Dr Charlie Hall leafing through several documents from a file at the National Archives. The documents relate to the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster.

Britain Under Threat: The Bethnal Green Tube Disaster

Dr Charlie Hall

Published 20th March, 2025 1 min read

A poster from the Second World War, recruiting women to join the fire service. It reads Women! You are needed in the National Fire Service as full-time of pert-time members.

Britain Under Threat: Civil Defence in the Second World War

British Online Archives

Published 18th March, 2025 1 min read

A black and white photograph of a parade of 12,000 soldiers in Liverpool. The photograph shows part of the forty-five minute parade passing by Liverpool’s St. George’s Hall, which had been a recruitment headquarters in the city centre since the war’s outbreak.

Document of the Week: Image of Lord Kitchener’s Liverpool Visit, March 1915

Dr Catherine Bateson

Published 17th March, 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 six 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