People and Places

Priests
Information about the clergy of the Diocese can be extracted from a number of primary and secondary sources available in the archives, which give details of the priests’ education, ordinations and subsequent careers in the diocese.

Churches
The Archives also contain documentary and photographic records that provide evidence of the history of the churches in the Diocese. There are a large number of plans and drawings relating to churches, the biggest singe collection comprising over 500 items dating from the design and construction of St Anne’s Cathedral in Leeds between 1900 and 1904.

Parishes
A range of sources are available that trace the development of individual parishes in the Diocese. Some of the earliest records are the 19th century Visitation Papers of the Bishops of the Diocese and in many cases these are supplemented by financial and legal records, notice books and printed material such as parish magazines and souvenir brochures.

These sources are often used to prepare parish histories for publication, with recent examples being the histories of St Joseph’s, Leeds and St Mary’s, Batley, published in 2004; the centenary history of St Augustine’s, Leeds (2005); and the bicentenary history of St Joseph's, Bishop Thornton (2009)

Schools
The records of several diocesan schools have been deposited in recent years. In some cases these are schools that are still in existence but in the main the records were deposited as a result of school reorganisations and closures. Some of these records date back to the middle of the 19th century, and include log-books and admission registers.