This week we have added 98,602 brand new pages to The Archive. We have updates to eleven of our existing titles – spanning 134 years between 1865 and 1999, and covering towns and cities across England and Northern Ireland.

You can find extensive updates this week to Yorkshire title the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, with over 12,000 new pages added, which include the years between 1885 and 1909. We have additions to other regional titles as well, covering the south of England (Crawley and London), the Midlands (Coventry), as well as the north of the country (Liverpool).

We are excited to welcome further updates to one of our specialist publications – Field – for which we now have editions up to 1911. Field is a newspaper dedicated to country pursuits, and is a unique window into the world of the Victorian country gentleman.

1911 was one of the hottest summers ever recorded in the United Kingdom. Indeed, the hottest temperature recorded that year (36.7 C in Raunds, Northamptonshire) was not matched until the heatwave of 1990. Using our newly added pages this week we discover the impact of this heatwave and the ensuing drought 108 years ago.

Cooling off in Ostend & Leigh-on-Sea | The Tatler | 9 August 1911

The Liverpool Daily Post reports on 15 July 1911 that the ‘drought [is] still unbroken,’ with the ‘Lake District simmering in the sun.’ The article goes on to describe how:

In more sheltered parts of the country, where there was little stir in the air, the temperature was both excessive and oppressive. At Windermere, for instance, the mercury rose to 85 in the shade, and Keswick’s record was only 4 points lower. On the English Channel shores the day was scorching hot, Weymouth (85), Teignmouth (84), and Falmouth (81) having the worst of it in a day of fifteen hours’ blazing sunshine…London, as usual, suffered almost the full force of the caloric wave, 83 in the shade and 125 in the sun being the record there.

Unfortunately, quite a few deaths had been attributed to the heat, and ‘bathing fatalities have been reported with sadly-familiar regularity.’ However, Liverpudlians must have counted themselves lucky, according to another article in the Liverpool Daily Post, as they possessed ‘an excellent water supply,’ whereas ‘in some North Wales districts the current spell of dry weather has led to the water supply being curtailed to the lowest possible minimum daily.’

The Tatler | 16 August 1911

This extended period of drought – which passed through July and August, the weather finally breaking in September – of course had an adverse affect on agriculture. The Liverpool Daily Post details how the drought had ‘serious effects on farming in Dorset.’ Whilst many might be enjoying hot sunny days beside the seaside, farmers faced an ‘unprecedentedly gloomy’ outlook. Sheep were being sold at low prices, root crops ‘failed altogether,’ but tomatoes happily thrived in such weather.

Field reports how the plum and apple crop were also suffering from the ‘abnormal’ weather – with projected yields being only half of the average. Field goes into great technical detail on the drought and its impact upon agriculture, and is a fascinating resource for understanding more on the impact of the 1911 drought.

Field advertises one solution for the heatwave! | Field | 17 June 1911

UPDATED TITLES

This week we have updated eleven of our existing titles.

You can learn more about each of the titles we add to every week by clicking on their names. On each paper’s title page, you can read a FREE sample issue, learn more about our current holdings, and our plans for digitisation.

Register now and explore the Archive

You can keep up to date with all the latest additions by visiting the recently added page.  You can even look ahead to see what we’re going to add tomorrow.