historic newspapers | The British Newspaper Archive Blog - Part 2

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Hot off the Press – New Titles this Week

This week we’ve added 320,174 new pages to The Archive.  We have added a baker’s dozen, 13, brand new titles.  We are delighted to have added new titles for England and Ireland this week.  We’ve added to our Sports Titles with the Football Gazette (South Shields), the Sports Gazette (Middlesbrough), and, for Ireland, Ireland’s Saturday Night which covered football, cycling and athletics. As always we’ve added more pages to our existing titles, both old and new.  Forty-nine titles have had

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‘A Saturnalia of Nondescript Noise and Nonconformity’ – The Rise and Fall of the Charter Fair

Using newspapers from The Archive, in this special blog we take a look at the history of Charter Fairs, from their inception in the medieval period to their continuation in twentieth century Britain. In his June 1955 article for The Sphere, entitled A Partial Eclipse of the Fair, Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald notes how ‘Fairs are of very ancient origin,’ and have been part of British life for thousands of years. A Charter Fair was a fair endorsed by the Crown. Crown-issued

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Hot off the press – new titles this week

This week we spent some time consolidating our existing titles.  We have updates to ten existing titles including the ever popular Lloyd’s List.  We have added 97,426 pages in the last 7 days. We have added one brand new title to The Archive: The West Middlesex Herald.   With over 1,500 issues spanning 1855 to 1895 this is a valuable addition to The Archive for the mid to late Victorian period.  We have this paper from its first edition on

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Guest post: “The Atrocious Attempt at Murder at Ludlow” by Richard Tisdale

It’s 1841 and Josiah Mister is on trial in Shrewsbury for attempted murder – committed at the Angel Inn in Ludlow. The victim was William Mackreth, a trader from Bristol who was in the town for the summer fair. In the early hours of the morning, he was brutally attacked by someone who’d been hiding under his bed. He managed to fight him off and his assailant escaped; a trail of blood led to Josiah’s room and he was arrested. But did

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Hot off the press – new titles added this week

The British Newspaper Archive

We’re happy to bring you word of the latest additions to The British Newspaper Archive. Three new titles have joined the site along with updates to ten existing titles. Our new titles are from Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, Scotland; Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England; and Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England: Jedburgh Gazette, Wisbech Standard, and Hunts Post, respectively. You can learn more about each of the titles we have added to this week by clicking on their names below. On each paper’s title page, you can learn more

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Halloween in history

Black cat

Of witches and witchcraft As we kick off our Halloween celebrations and delve into the history, contained within the newspapers, of witches and witchcraft (and supernatural beings), it is imperative that we preface this — perhaps unnecessarily — with an important disclaimer and reminder: witches, in the sense of practitioners of malevolent powers to do evil works, never existed. Those persecuted during the sixteenth century and onward were, more often than not, local healers and midwives. In 1562, Queen Elizabeth

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Fashion findings – autumn knitting

As autumn gets truly underway, the warm clothes come out and the knitting needles start clacking. Knitting has a long tradition. This versatile skill could be utilised at anytime — and often was. Printed in the Illustrated War News in 1914, a group of women were photographed knitting in a wine cellar during bombardments in Rheims. Womanly sympathy with the soldiers is taking the practical form on the Continent, and in our own country, of knitting “comforts” for them, but the

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Occupations: innovators and inventions

Balloon ascending

In thinking about using newspapers to discover more about the vast array of occupations that have existed over the centuries — some of which still exist while others have been lost to annals of time (bunters, decretists, and gummers, to name a few)  — it’s inevitable to end up thinking about the innovators and inventors who have made headlines over the years. Don’t miss a thing, follow us on Instagram! Lasting power Some inventions have lasting power and others, sadly for

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Hot off the Press – papers added this week

This past week we added 91,374 pages to the archive.  We have added three brand new titles and pages to eight existing titles.  Joining the Archive this week are two brand new titles for Ireland.  The Limerick Chronicle gives news of the western seaboard of Ireland, our holdings cover both the pre and post-Famine period.  The Mid-Ulster Mail was published in Tyrone and our current holdings offer insight into the period before the Great War.   Joining the Archive this week

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Hot off the press – papers added this week

The Archive continues to grow at an amazing pace.  We’ve added 145,914 pages to twenty-two newspapers since our last update.  The archive now holds 698 newspapers for the UK and Ireland.  Our additions this week include nine brand new titles and additions to thirteen existing titles. Our brand new titles this week include four titles for Scottish counties: Aberdeenshire, Lanarkshire, Angus (Forfanshire) and Wigtownshire. There are four new papers for England, two of which are from London (Fulham & Hampstead),

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