Who Led Leeds? Public service between the wars: building a biographical library through collaboration

Abstract

AbstractFew biographical databases exist giving any information about the lives of ‘ordinary’ local leaders. Who Led Leeds? was a public engagement project that aimed to create a biographical collection at the Leeds Central Library, detailing the lives of Leeds city councillors who served between 1918 and 1939. This article describes the project and considers the extent to which the project was successful. It also reflects on how the creation of such archives using existing resources in local studies and family history libraries has the potential to expand and enrich the field of urban history.