Our presses have been on overdrive as we bring to you over 200,000 brand new pages in this week’s update. To be precise, we have added 203,966 brand new pages, with five brand new titles joining us from England and Wales, as well as the addition of a very special new sporting title.

We’ve also made updates to sixteen of our existing titles, spanning England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Read on to discover more about all of this week’s updates!

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Leading the charge of our brand new titles is the Workman’s Advocate (Merthyr Tydfil). Established in 1873, it was a radical bilingual newspaper (with articles in both English and Welsh) which devoted itself to the interests of the working man in South Wales. Describing itself as the ‘Official Organ of the Colliers, Miners, Ironworkers, Etc’ it ran with the motto ‘Defence, not Defiance.’

Workman’s Advocate (Merthyr Tydfil) | 8 November 1873

In its inaugural outing, the Workman’s Advocate (Merthyr Tydfil) promised to be ‘devoted fully, heatily, exclusively, to the true interests of the working classes of all sections and branches in the community,’ but paying particular attention to the miners and iron-producers of South Wales. This newspaper’s watch words included justice, reason, fair play, equity and impartiality.

We move now to our next new title, a specialist sporting one published in Nottingham. The Football News (Nottingham)  first appeared on 5 September 1891, showcasing local football news and results, with particular attention paid to the teams of Nottingham Forest and Notts County, the latter being the oldest professional football association in the world.

Football News (Nottingham) | 21 April 1906

The Football News (Nottingham) was not just, however, limited to the beautiful game. It also reported on other sports like cricket, racing, cycling and billiards, also featuring other non-sporting headlines. As time went by, the Football News (Nottingham) began to include illustrations, as well as filling its pages with adverts and betting odds.

A couple of our other new titles this week also hail from the Midlands, including the Birmingham & Aston Chronicle. Starting life as the Aston Chronicle, it became the Birmingham and Aston Chronicle on 3 January 1880 before being discontinued in May 1897.

We’ve also added the Wolverhampton Express and Star to our collection, which began life as the Midland Counties Evening Express before being merged with the Star, which was established in Wolverhampton in 1880. These papers were rivals; the Star was the liberal alternative to the Evening Express, and in 1882 it was bought by the wealthy Scottish-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie had bought the paper at the urging of his friend Thomas Graham, and two years after the acquisition the Star took over the Evening Express and the combined title was born.

Wolverhampton Express and Star | 27 February 1889

In 1902 Carnegie severed ties with the newspaper and sole control passed to Thomas Graham, who died in 1909. Upon his death it passed to his descendants, who oversaw its steady growth and helped the Express and Star become one of the few independently owned newspapers still in existence. The Express and Star is known for its strong football ties, as well as covering local and national news. In 2007 it had a circulation of 170,000.

Our final new title this week is the Herts and Essex Observer. Covering, as its name suggests, the counties of Hertfordshire and Essex, this publication was initially known as the Bishop Stortford Observer, a nod to the town in which it was published.

Herts and Essex Observer | 25 August 1877

With sixteen updated titles this week – from Ballinrobe to Manchester, from Fife to Halifax, from Dartmouth to Dundee – it is difficult to pick just a few highlights. But the 50,000 pages we have added to the Marylebone Mercury, spanning a hundred years from 1872 to 1978, are certainly worth a mention, as are the 32,328 pages we have added to Gentlewoman, the newspaper for gentlewomen by gentlewomen, bringing pages from the newspaper’s final days to our collection.

Molineux Stadium – Home of the Wolves Since 1889

With the return of the football Premier League this September, and the addition of new pages from the Wolverhampton Express and Star, it is perhaps fitting that we look at the historic opening of the new Molineux stadium in 1889, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers since 2 September 1889.

The Wolverhampton Express and Star carries a report on the 3 September 1889, covering the ‘Opening of the Season at Molineux Grounds.’ In anticipation of the match, and the Wolves’ move to their new home, ‘Labourers were at work in all directions, fixing and removing, digging, turfing, and levelling, while bricks, soil, and the general disorder which incompleted alterations of the kind always bring were to be seen on all sides.’

Wolverhampton Wanders play Newton Heath, November 1893 | Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News | 18 November 1893

The work was completed just in time, ‘and the new patch, now 115 yards by 75 yards, looked as level as a billiard table.’ Some ‘inconvenience’ was caused to the spectators, however, as although the work had been completed on the pitch, it seems it had not quite finished off it.

Wolverhampton Wanderer’s first opponents at the Molineux grounds were Aston Villa. Meanwhile, ‘the weather was all that could be desired, and by the time play commenced a very large concourse of spectators had assembled.’

Wolverhampton Wanders play Newton Heath, November 1893 | Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News | 18 November 1893

Fittingly, the first result at Molineuex was a 1-0 victory to Wolves, with the home side scoring just before half time ‘amid tremendous applause.’

Why not try researching the history of your local team in the Archive? With game descriptions and results, and also some illustrations and photographs, our collection is a fantastic resource for anybody with an interest in sport history.

New Titles

Updated Titles

This week we have updated sixteen 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.