Featured Collections
Welcome to Wigan & Leigh Archives Online
our new photographic and collections website
You will find thousands of new resources, improved viewing and searching, and over time we'll be adding new collections from the Archives and Museums.
A small minority of images on our site contain offensive content. Archives: Wigan & Leigh have provided captions to contextualise these images. If you discover any content you deem offensive, please get in touch.
We hope you enjoy our new website and would be pleased to hear from you with any ideas and suggestions or donations of new archives or photographs for us to add to the site.
News
Migration Stories: Belgian Refugees
Posted on 22nd Sep 2025 by AWL Team
During the First World War, following the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914, around 250,000 Belgians came to Britain to escape the conflict. Refugees were mainly civilians but also included wounded and discharged Belgian...
Migration Stories: Michal Towarnicki, Displaced Person
Posted on 16th Sep 2025 by Helen Kavanagh
‘I don’t know much about Michal. Only that when Germany invaded Poland, he was taken prisoner and made to work in the German coal mines... for six months without being allowed up.’ So begins the handwritten note I...
History Hackers: A Creative Heritage Project with Leigh's Young People
Posted on 1st Sep 2025 by AWL Team
Over the course of eight sessions in the Summer Holidays, Archives: Wigan & Leigh has engaged 115 children in a heritage and technology project that brought local history to life in new ways. Alongside Computer Xplorers, we’ve...