The aim of this project was to produce a guide to locations in Leeds connected to Dr John Deakin Heaton (1817-1880) and mentioned in his Journal. Heaton was a Leeds physician and promoter of provincial civic pride in nineteenth-century Britain. His journals are a rich and varied resource providing information for scholars researching issues relating to the domestic and civic activities of the urban middle-class elite during the nineteenth century.
The guide comprises a map interface with content plotted at specific locations using map pointers. The content is in the form of text and images derived from Heaton’s Journal and other sources as well as explanatory information provided by the project’s Director, Dr Simon Morgan. The guide is available as a mobile web application, as well as desktop and tablet versions, providing users with location-based walking tours of the many sites of interest.
The journals comprise seven closely written leather-bound volumes, totalling approximately 2,800 pages (1.4 million words), which were probably written up from a daily diary, now lost. The journals document the life and times of a man who was at the heart of the nineteenth-century Leeds elite. They are an invaluable resource to scholars interested in the public and private lives of the provincial middle-classes, the feminist activities of his wife, and his sister Ellen’s activities as an early patron of Dante Gabrielle Rossetti and correspondent of John Ruskin. The journals have recently come into the possession of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society (YAS) who are keen to make this source more accessible to scholars while actively engaging the wider community of Leeds and the West Riding of Yorkshire with this fascinating part of their history.
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Related links
Project Team
- Dr Simon Morgan (Project Director – Leeds Metropolitan University)
- Kirsty McHugh (Yorkshire Archaeological Society)
- Michael Pidd (The Digital Humanities Institute)
- Ryan Bloor (Developer – The Digital Humanities Institute)