The Society is pleased to launch a new programme for researchers, in partnership with The Social History Archive, published by DC Thomson. The Social History Archive is a comprehensive online archive of British, Irish, and former empire historical resources for academic research and teaching.
This new scheme offers researchers, at all career stages, 6 months free access, via the Archive, to online primary source materials otherwise not available to them via an existing institutional affiliation or subscription.
Full details of The Social History Archive, the programme, and how to apply are available here.
The Social History Archive combines a newspaper collection of more than 2,800 historical titles and over 100 million pages published between 1699 and 2014, as well as nearly 3,000 record sets (comprising almost 500 million images), spanning primary sources from the thirteenth century to 2025. In addition, the Archive provides 40 themed primary source sets, bringing together content on chosen topics.
The RHS / Social History Archive Partnership provides access for historians –- who are Fellows and Members of the Society* –- who require the Archive for research but do not have access to this resource via an existing institutional affiliation.
Calls for the Partnership take place twice a year, with up to 30 researchers receiving free access to The Social History Archive for a 6-month period in each round. The first call opens on 21 September and runs to 30 October 2026, with access beginning for six months from 1 January 2027.
In creating this partnership, we seek to support research across the Society’s membership, including established independent historians and those who have recently completed or left higher education and whose access to online content is much reduced.
For more on contents of The Social History Archive and how to apply for access , please see here.
Extending researchers’ access to other online resources
The Royal Historical Society is very grateful to The Social History Archive and DC Thomson for their involvement in this partnership.
The Society welcomes similar partnerships with other publishers and providers of online primary research content. If you are a publisher and wish to discuss this, please contact the Society’s President, Professor Lucy Noakes: [email protected].
*How to apply to join the Society
Applications to join the Royal Historical Society as a Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member or Postgraduate Member are welcome at any time.
Further details of each category of membership are available here. More on how to apply, and the benefits of membership for each category, is also available.
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