We are now counting down the days until Christmas, and there are only a few days of shopping left. Many of us are looking for inspiration for that perfect gift. The newspapers found in The British Newspaper Archive can provide a number of gift-giving guides. We can see an increase in Christmas advertising and gift guides from the late 18th century as mass consumerism became a trend of Christmas. Before the days of social media, Pinterest, and Amazon wish lists, …
Register today! It is that time of the year. The trees have been decorated, the lights strung up around the windows, nativity scenes assembled, and stockings hung (by the chimney with care). It also means that it is time to start planning your Christmas dinner. For many of us, that means making travel arrangements, but for the hosts of these pivotal dinners, it means creating an efficient plan, ordering the turkey, picking the best vegetables, and food preparation. To help you …
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We have come to the end of the year and for the month of December we are looking across the month at historic events that occurred during the month including the death of a famous musician, an explorer’s achievement, the first woman in Parliament, and the coronation of Napoleon. We do not claim that these are all the noteworthy historical events in December. If you know of any significant ‘December’ events that you have found in The Archive share them …
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One of the features of The British Newspaper Archive is the OCR editing tool. This allows every user to contribute to the improvement of The Archive. OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition– the process we use to transform millions of digitised images into searchable text. The computer takes an image of the page and then turns each line into text. However, as many of us have encountered, the text is not always correct and needs improvement. As a group, we …
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During the First World War (1914-1918), the role of women in Britain was massively altered and the women’s sphere was enlarged in every direction. Some historians mark the First World War as a watershed moment in women’s history when women were looked at less as fragile creatures and more as robust figures. A single blog post is not enough to explore all the contributions of women during the Great War, but we have combed through The British Newspaper Archive and …
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Researching British army ancestors in The British Newspaper Archive As part of our military themed month, we are delighted to bring you a guest blog post by military researcher Paul Nixon. Paul is the author of the blogs Army Ancestry Research and Army Service Numbers 1881-1918. He has also recently launched a new endeavour, British Army Ancestors, a database of over 11 million men who served their monarch and country between 1850 and 1920 and a resource which enables visitors to …
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In honour of Remembrance Day, during the month of November, The British Newspaper Archive will be focusing our attention on military in the newspapers. Coming up this month we will feature blogs about our special military titles, researching military history, women and war, and wartime rationing and fashion, as well as a guest blog about a remarkable Great War discovery from The Archive. To begin our military month, we are delving into the newspaper headlines through the years for the …
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The British Newspaper Archive is proud to feature a guest blog by author Naomi Clifford. In 2016, Naomi Clifford wrote The Disappearance of Maria Glenn, a story of crime and coercion about the abduction of a sugar plantation heiress. This year, Clifford is back with a new book, Women and the Gallows 1797-1837: Unfortunate Wretches. Her research into the 131 women hanged in England and Wales involved extensive research in the British Newspaper Archive. Eliza Ross is just one name featured in the new book to be published …
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In our Cookery Corner this month, we are diving into comforting pie dishes. Whether sweet or savoury, there is nothing better than the smell of a freshly baked pie. In our Local English Fare post last month, we found a recipe for an eel pie. This month we will look at other savoury pie recipes as well as a few sweet treats too. Finding recipes for pies was incredibly easy. Simply by searching for +pie +ingredients we received thousands of results …
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The Illustrated London News, the world’s first illustrated newspaper, debuted in 1842. Over the decades, the publishers expanded into the ‘great 8’ titles: Sketch, Sphere, Tatler, Graphic, Bystander, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, and Britannia and Eve. In 1928, the Illustrated London News published an illustration of the interior of their own offices at Inveresk House, ‘a hive of journalistic industry’. Discover more about the history of the Illustrated London News In the image, you can see the offices of the individual …