London Lives, 1690 to 1800 - Major Infrastructure Update

Overview

[AI Summary]: The Digital Humanities Institute at the University of Sheffield has launched a substantially updated version of the London Lives website, a fully searchable digital edition of 240,000 primary sources about eighteenth-century London (1690-1800). The project focuses on plebeian Londoners and provides access to 3.35 million names from eight London archives, supplemented by fifteen datasets from other projects. The major update includes a complete technical infrastructure rebuild, mobile-responsive redesign, introduction of a macroscope visualization tool, improved browse functions, revised background pages, and corrections to markup and image links.

  • Institution: University of Sheffield, Digital Humanities Institute
  • Status: Active (major update released November 2025)
  • Type: Digital archive, searchable database
  • Coverage: 240,000 digitized primary sources, 3.35 million names
  • Time Period: 1690-1800 (18th-century London)
  • Topics: Crime, poverty, illness, apprenticeship, work, voting, daily life
  • Project URL: https://www.londonlives.org/
  • Team Credits: Jamie McLaughlin (software engineer), Sharon Howard (Data Manager), Mary Clayton (proofreader), Nick Phipps (web designer)