This week at The Archive we have added nearly 200,000 new pages to our collection, covering England, Scotland and Ireland. To be precise, 193,470 brand new pages have joined us this week, with updates to 21 of our existing titles.

We have updates to eleven of our English titles this week, covering the length and breadth of the country, from Devon (Express and Echo) to Newcastle (Newcastle Daily Chronicle), from Staffordshire (Staffordshire Sentinel) to London (Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette).

A particular highlight this week includes extensive updates to the Wells Journal. Founded in 1851 by bookseller and printer Samuel Backhouse, this newspaper was notable as it pledged to advocate the public good and to defend the principles of universal morality. Furthermore, it promised to exclude ‘all objectionable advertisements,’ with a focus on representing commercial, agricultural, foreign and literary intelligence. We have added nearly 20,000 pages to this title, spanning over a hundred years from 1870 to 1979.

Wells Journal | 12 March 1870

Another notable update this week is to one of our early titles – the National Register (London). Published in London by J B Bell and J De Camp, who also were responsible for the publication of Le Beau Monde or Literary and Fashionable Magazine, this newspaper was published under the heading ‘Our King, Constitution and Laws.’ It promised to include ‘original political disquisitions and strictures on virulent declaimers and political pamphleteers,’ as well as foreign intelligence and state papers. We have added the year 1810 to this intriguing title.

National Register (London) | 10 July 1810

We have also updated seven of our Scottish titles, with significant updates to the Port-Glasgow Express, the Fifeshire Journal and the Wishaw Press. Rounding off our updated titles this week are updates to three of our Irish publications – the Bray People, the Drogheda Argus & Leinster Journal and the Enniscorthy Guardian.

1810, the year added to the National Register, was the year that King George III was declared insane for the final time, and a Regency subsequently established. On 23 December 1810 the National Register (London) published several pages of doctors’ reports on the King’s condition, as expert opinion was sought on the likelihood of the monarch’s recovery, and his ability to conduct state business.

National Register (London) | 23 December 1810

Dr Henry Revell Reynolds offered his opinion that the King’s ‘anxiety of mind’ had been caused  by the illness of his daughter, Princess Amelia, who passed away in November 1810. All the doctors interviewed describe the contradictions of the King’s condition, which they diagnosed to linger between a fever-imposed delirium, and insanity:

What do you mean by the integrity of the King’s mind at the present time? – I mean, that his memory is entire, his perceptions are entire; and his acuteness is considerable, which appears from every now and then a comment on any thing that is said. His judgement I have said was perverted, and that at present his discretion is asleep at times.

Sir Henry Halford concurred with Revell Reynold’s above opinion, that ‘his Majesty’s perception is clear and keen; his memory, which is the first faculty usually observed to be influenced and to be injured by this disease, and which is the first to feel the effect of age, is sound and strong; his judgement is in eclipse.’

King George III by Johann Zoffany | Illustrated London News | 24 December 1960

So with King George’s judgement in doubt, and doctors unable to give a ‘probable time for His Majesty’s ultimate recovery,’ a Regency was established in 1811, with the monarch’s eldest son George taking over his father’s responsibilities. George III’s health would never recover, and he died in 1820, causing the Prince Regent to become King George IV. To this day the reason for King George III’s illness is still debated; whilst The Archive lends us a fascinating contemporary account of the opinions of the doctors who attended him.

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Updated Titles

This week we have updated twenty-one 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.

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.