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Dr Ruth Ellery

Local historian of the Calder valley mill towns

A drawer of old cabinet photographs and cartes de visite standing on end, a bearded man's portrait at the front.
A woman with dark hair and glasses looking out from between library shelves. Explore my research >

The ordinary lives in the boxes nobody opened

An older woman in glasses working at an old desktop computer in a library reading room.

I have spent twenty years in the record offices of West Yorkshire, reading wage books, chapel registers and the photographs nobody labelled. My work is about the people who appear in history only as a name in a column: weavers, carters, Sunday school teachers.

I write books for general readers, give talks to local societies, and help families find their own people in the archive. Everything I publish has its sources listed, so you can go and look for yourself.

Three fields of work

Tall stacks of paper documents and folders filling an office.

Mill wage books

What a family earned, week by week, in four mills between 1840 and 1914, and what it bought.

Old sepia group photographs and a handwritten letter spread across a table.

Unlabelled photographs

Dating and placing the pictures in family albums from clothes, shop signs and studio backdrops.

Archive shelves stacked to the ceiling with labelled cardboard boxes.

Chapel and school

Sunday school registers as a record of who could read, and who taught them.

Books & talks

A short list of the work people ask about most. Every book is in the local library; talks can be booked by any society or school.

A young woman reading a book in front of shelves of colourful books.
  • 2024Twelve Shillings a Week. Wage books of the Hebble mills, with a reader's guide to old money.
  • 2021Who Is in This Photograph? A field guide to dating family pictures, 1860–1940.
  • 2018Chapel Street. One terrace, thirty-one households, a hundred years.
  • Talk"Your great-grandmother's payslip" · 50 minutes, for history societies and sixth forms.

Before you bring me a box of papers

A heap of old photographs, letters and small books tipped out onto a blue sheet.

Do not sort it

The order things were kept in is evidence. Bring the box as you found it, even if it looks like a mess.

Old notebooks and ledgers standing in a row on a dark shelf.

Write down what you know

Who owned it, which house it came from, the names your family used. Half a page is plenty.

A row of old leather-bound books with gold lettering on their spines.

What it costs

A first look is free. A written family report starts at £180, and I tell you the price before I open a single envelope.

Let's look together

I am always glad to hear from local societies, schools, museums and families. Talks are booked a term ahead; family work usually starts within a month.

Ruth Ellery · 01422 960 714 · Tue–Thu

Get in touch >

A quiet library reading room with tall green bookcases and a leather sofa.