This week we have added 93,860 new pages to The Archive. We have one brand new title joining us this week – the Banffshire Reporter – as well as updates to thirteen of our English and Scottish titles.

Published in Portsoy, Aberdeenshire, the Banffshire Reporter was a weekly local newspaper founded by Thomas Anderson. Anderson ‘mastered the art of printing after he reached middle life,’ and printed several newspapers in the Portsoy area. Upon his retirement the Banffshire Reporter was sold to the Calder Brothers in 1884, and ceased publication in 1920.

Banffshire Reporter | 7 March 1900

We have updates this week to three of our Scottish titles – namely the Port-Glasgow Express, the North British Daily Mail and the Irvine Times.

With updates to ten of English titles this week, our coverage is strengthened from Exeter to Newcastle, from Thanet to Sandwell, from London to Bristol. Particular highlights this week include nearly 35,000 pages added to the Bristol Times and Mirror, covering the years 1883 to 1909, and the nearly 17,000 pages added to the Hammersmith & Shepherd’s Bush Gazette, which cover the years 1955 to 1981.

This week marks 150 years since the Cutty Sark, one of the last tea clippers, was launched in Dunbarton, Scotland. Built on the River Leven, she initially worked as a tea clipper ferrying tea from China to London. However, with the rise of the steam ship, tea clippers were soon eclipsed. However, the Cutty Sark continued to be put to use, bringing wool from Australia to the United Kingdom, and by 1922 she was the last clipper still operating, and by the 1930s she had become the sole surviving clipper ship.

Cutty Sark under full sail, painted by F Tudgay | The Sphere | 31 December 1955

Using our newly-added pages, and our other newspapers in The Archive, we can trace the Cutty Sark’s remarkable story, from her launch in 1869 to the fund that was set up to preserve her in the 1950s.

The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, 27 November 1869, reports on her launch:

Messrs. Scott and Linton launched on the Clyde, 22nd inst, a composite China clipper ship, named Cutty Sark, of about 960 tons register, for Messrs John Willis and Sons, London.

Shipping and Mercantile Gazette | 27 November 1869

Fascinating snippets appear across our titles about the Cutty Sark’s adventures throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1877 the North British Daily Mail reports how ‘the ship Cutty Sark, for Sydney, has put back with damage and loss of two anchors and chains having been in collision with two vessels.’ Meanwhile the same newspaper three years later reports of a tragic event on board in Singapore, where the first mate, having murdered a fellow crew member, was helped to escape by the ship’s captain, who subsequently drowned himself.

Cutty Sark at anchor | Illustrated London News | 25 April 1953

By the 1930s, now no longer in service to the winds of the trade routes, the Cutty Sark had become something of a symbol, as highlighted by the Exeter-based Express and Echo. As the ‘last and only suriving clipper’ she became the inspiration behind a ‘romantic programme in verse and music by Robert Kemp and Dennis Stoll:’

Now anchored like a National winner put out the grass at Greenhythe, on the Thames, [she] has become for many people…part of the sea-legend of Britain. She is more than a beautiful ship; she is a symbol of the gallant spirit that sent Drake round the world and Cook through undiscovered seas to Australia.

Cutty Sark enters her dry dock | The Sphere | 10 March 1951

Bu the 1950s, the Cutty Sark Preservation Society was set up, and the Cutty Sark herself was placed in a specially designed dry dock at Greenwich, where she remains to this day, a popular London attraction. Letters to the Port-Glasgow Express in 1954 ask for the ‘courtesy’ of the newspaper’s columns for the support of readers towards the preservation fund. Spearheaded by patron the Duke of Edinburgh, fundraisers hoped to preserve the Cutty Sark ‘as a monument to the Merchant Navy just as the HMS Victory commemorates the tradition of the Royal Navy.’

The Sphere | 27 September 1954

The fundraising was successful, and the Cutty Sark, the last of the tea clippers, remains berthed at Greenwich. You can discover more about the Cutty Sark’s story by browsing our Archive today.

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New Titles

Updated Titles

This week we have updated thirteen 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.