Trade directories play a part in our everyday life, more than we realise.

The ubiquitous telephone directory is familiar to everyone, as is the The Yellow Pages – a trade directory regionally focused and funded by contributors advertising their specialised services and products.

Yellow Pages is the modern-day equivalent of street and trade directories like Kelly’s, Pigots, Whites and so many more, which have become both sought-after and used as a valuable source of historic information. Historians and researchers have been aware of the value of these resources for some time and due to the advent of the internet, there has been a considerable upsurge in genealogical activity. Researching family history has never been easier with access to publicly available resources such as census records on-line and the LDS repository.

From the outset there is a tendency to create endless “lists of dead people” as someone once described it, but there comes a time where there is an urge to understand how people lived all those years ago, what their communities were like and how they interacted socially. Conventional reference books tend to focus on a more general understanding of the time, although there are some truly excellent works such as Judith Flander’s The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London which reflects life in a very detailed manner.

We are converting our website to totally embrace the digital-age and permit digital downloads to streamline your acquisition of these old and rare trade directories in ebook form – ready for Kindle, Kobo and any other modern eReader – not forgetting the trusty tablet and PC users!

Please bookmark this site, for we have many [many!] hundreds of historic book titles waiting in the wings being prepared for release. Furthermore if there are any areas of interest so far not covered and we may be able to accelerate the scanning process for you, please contact us.