Free virtual talk by Danny Friar, based on his Heritage Open Days walking tour, on slavery, empire and their impact on Leeds.
Danny Friar is giving a virtual talk on slavery, empire and Leeds history at The Leeds Library on Wednesday 4 November, from 13:00 to 14:00. The session is presented as a Heritage Leeds 400 event by the Thoresby Society, and it's free to attend.
The talk is based on a guided walking tour Friar led back in September for Heritage Open Days 2026. That tour looked at slavery and empire and their impact on Leeds and on everyday people, uncovering hidden histories, forgotten people and secret stories from the city's past. This session brings that material into a talk format, so you can hear the research without having to be out on the streets on a weekday morning.
It's hosted at The Leeds Library, which is a bit of a landmark in its own right. Founded in 1768 as a proprietary subscription library, it's the oldest surviving example of its kind in the British Isles, and Joseph Priestley was among its original subscribers. The collections run deep in travel, topography, biography, history and literature, with long runs of periodicals, Civil War pamphlets and Reformation Tracts, and around 1,500 new books and audio-visual items added each year. The library became a charity on 1 July 2008.
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So, if you're interested in how the city's past connects to these wider histories, it's a good one to catch. The talk runs from 13:00 to 14:00 on Wednesday 4 November, and it's free.
