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Liddle Collection (First and Second World Wars)

Archive Collection: LIDDLE Contains records with digital media

Details

Type of record: Archive

Title: Liddle Collection (First and Second World Wars)

Level: Collection

Classmark: LIDDLE

Date(s): 1914-1945

Language: English; German; French; Spanish; Russian; Italian; Turkish; Hungarian

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/12656

Collection group(s): Liddle Collection

Description

Peter Liddle began collecting First World War personal experience material from veterans and their descendants in the 1960s, when he was a schoolteacher in Liverpool making pioneering use of original sources to bring history lessons alive. After moving to take up a further-education lecturing post at Sunderland Polytechnic in 1967, he continued to add to the collection and encouraged its use by researchers from schoolchildren and trainee history teachers to scholars with international reputations. He himself published a series of books drawing extensively on the collection's holdings.


By 1988 the collection had outgrown its premises in Sunderland and the opportunity arose for it to be transferred to Leeds University Library, with Peter Liddle continuing as its keeper until his retirement in 1999. The collection's holdings of private and official papers, photographs, maps, artwork and artefacts (including uniforms and equipment), document the First World War experiences of over 6,000 men and women, about half of whom were recorded by Peter Liddle and others, resulting in a remarkably vivid resource for researchers. There is also a body of similar material, including recorded interviews, reflecting the experiences of around 500 people in the Second World War. The Collection is backed up by some 5000 books and periodicals and its value to researchers is significantly enhanced by detailed subject indexes to the majority of its holdings.


Many who subsequently achieved the highest ranks in the armed forces or rose to prominence in other walks of life are represented in the collection, but it chiefly reflects the experiences of the often very young men and women who were catapulted from civilian life into war in 1914 and who served on the Western front and in other theatres of war from Gallipoli and Salonika to the Caucasus and Mesopotamia, from North and South Russia to China, the Pacific and the Falkland Islands, from East Africa to Egypt and Palestine. The collection includes important sections on conscientious objectors, nursing units, prisoners-of-war and the domestic front, making its coverage of the experience of war comprehensive.

Biography or history

The Liddle Collection is an archive of First and Second World War material, which its founder, Peter Liddle, began to collect from veterans and their descendants in the late 1960s.

Access and usage

Reproduction

Access

This collection is fully accessible and not subject to protection under the Data Protection Act

Some parts of this collection have not been listed in detail and access may be protected under the Data Protection Act and other relevant legislation. Please consult the relevant part of the catalogue for specific details. Where a detailed record does not exist, please contact Special Collections. Upon receipt of your request, a member of the team will discuss your requirements with you and review relevant material accordingly.

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