This week we have added an impressive 147,928 new pages to The Archive, covering exactly one century of news. We have added five brand new titles this week, with four of these new additions being Scottish publications.

Joining The Archive is the Alloa Journal, the Forfar Herald and the Dalkeith Advertiser, as well as the Clyde Bill of Entry and Shipping List. The latter title was published by the Custom House in Glasgow, and recorded the declarations of goods being imported and exported. In total, our brand new Scottish titles comprise of 63,182 new pages, and together cover the hundred years between 1859 and 1959.

Our fifth new addition this week is the Daily Citizen (Manchester). A short-lived publication, produced between 1912 and 1915, this paper was the official newspaper of the fledgling Labour party. In its three year tenure, it attracted the contributions from the likes of Tom Webster, the famous cartoonist, and renowned critic and writer Neville Cardus, who was the newspaper’s music critic in 1913.

There are also updates to four of our existing titles. These cover the cities of Belfast and Newcastle, as well as the market town of Newbury in Berkshire. We are also delighted to welcome new pages to Sporting Life, with the years 1910-1912 added. Sporting Life was especially noted for its thorough coverage of horse racing, but also covers other sports from football to golf. Sporting Life is just one of our sixteen specialist sporting publications – you can discover the full list here.

A couple of our new and updated titles this week cover the year 1912. August 1912 saw the death of social reformer Octavia Hill, who dedicated most of her life to the improvement of the welfare of poorer city inhabitants. She particularly championed the preservation of open spaces in the city, and helped prevent Hampstead Heath from being built on.

Octavia Hill | Illustrated London News | 12 August 1933

In an October 1912 article in Labour affiliated newspaper the Daily Citizen (Manchester), author Edith M Jewson remembers the ‘feminine reformer’ – ‘one of the first, if not the first, to start the housing reform in London.’

She was directly responsible for the initiation of a multitude of new schemes for the redemption of slumdom – the provision of playgrounds for children, and of ‘outdoor drawing-rooms for the weary housewife.’

The article describes her work with the Commons’ Preservation Society, which undertook to save Hampstead Heath from ‘private encroachment,’ and the Kyrle Society, which aimed to ‘bring beauty to the poor.’

Hampstead Heath as depicted in 1890 | Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News | 17 May 1890

Elsewhere in our updated publications, namely the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, there is a strong record of Octavia Hill’s many philanthropic activities. In 1891 it describes her membership of the ‘Smoke Abatement Committee,’ which was a ‘scheme for holding an exhibition of improved firegates, furnaces, kitcheners, cooking, warming and other apparatus of all kinds, devised to prevent smoke, or to consume smokeless fuel.’

Octavia Hill | Aberdeen Press and Journal | 12 March 1935

In an 1895 letter to the Chronicle, Hill champions the preservation of the recreation ground at Ullswater in the Lake District, whilst an 1896 article records her donation towards the saving of Alfriston Old Clergy House. Hill was an activist truly ahead of her time, and you can discover more about her and her work by performing a search for ‘Octavia Hill’ on the British Newspaper Archive.

New Titles

Updated Titles

This week we have updated four 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.