As a department faculty member at Boston College, we thought you’d enjoy reading six narratives exploring specific aspects of British history through exclusive and rare historical manuscripts available in State Papers Online

Coming soon, our State Papers Online users will benefit from an enhanced experience, allowing for deeper research. In addition to improved accessibility, a streamlined user interface, and textual analysis tools, the following State Papers Online features will be added:

  • Digitized calendars — View the calendar facsimiles in addition to the text. All manuscript documents are linked to their related Calendar page, so researchers can seamlessly jump between the two.
  • Table of contents view — View a hyperlinked list of manuscript documents within a volume, enabling easy navigation and providing additional context.
  • Supplemental research tools alongside document — Select helpful supplemental guides (e.g., list of calendar abbreviations, list of principal officers of Crown and State, currency conversion tables) to read side by side with a manuscript or calendar document.
  • Calendar text alongside manuscript document — Making optimal use of the full screen width,  view the corresponding calendar text alongside the manuscript document, with the option to deselect either view.

 

Please share your feedback with us on how the State Papers Online collections can help with your research by using the quick feedback form.

 

As a starting point, take a minute to watch Professor Andrew Hopper, F.R. Hist. S., FHEA, from the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester, explaining how State Papers Online is critical in achieving his research project.

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Archive Insights

Published in three distinct collections, State Papers Online delivers an unmatched coverage of British history. By providing little-studied volumes online, within a platform that offers comparative analysis and multiple ways to search, State Papers Online represents enormous potential for research.

  • State Papers Online, 1509‒1714

    State Papers Online, 1509‒1714 is the perfect resource for understanding 200 years of British and European history, from the reign of Henry VIII to the end of the reign of Queen Anne. As the largest digital manuscript archive of its kind, this collection gathers 16th- and 17th-century British State Papers and links rare historical manuscripts to their fully text-searchable calendars.

  • State Papers Online: The Stuart and Cumberland Papers from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle

    State Papers Online: The Stuart and Cumberland Papers from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle provides correspondence and personal documents of the exiled members of the Stuart dynasty after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Cumberland Papers of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and second surviving son of George II, providing a unique window into the world of the Stuarts and their Jacobite followers as well as to the incumbent Hanoverian monarchy during a time of continental wars, domestic conspiracies, and rival claims to the throne.

  • State Papers Online: Eighteenth Century, 1714‒1782

    State Papers Online: Eighteenth Century, 1714‒1782 runs from the beginning of the reign of George I, the first Hanover king, in 1714 to the end of the State Papers series in 1782, during the reign of George III. These are the papers written or received by the secretaries of state in their conduct of British diplomacy at home and abroad throughout the 18th century, published in four parts. Key themes covered by the collection include the establishment of the British empire as a dominant colonial power, the development of agriculture and trade, and religious movements and dissent.

  • Peers with State Papers Online Collections

    The following peers hold State Papers Online collections:

    New York University
    Georgetown University
    Johns Hopkins University
    Emory University
    Rice University
    University of Notre Dame
    Marquette University

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