This week at The Archive we have been busy adding new pages from Bracknell to Bristol, from Cambridge to Chester, from Newcastle to Nottingham, from Scunthorpe to Staffordshire. In fact, we’ve added 134,187 brand new pages to our collection this week, covering over 170 years of headlines, from 1821 all the way through to 1997.
We’re delighted to announce that two brand new titles have joined us over the past seven days, and they hail from Nottingham and from Somerset respectively. Meanwhile, we’ve updated seventeen of our existing titles from England and from Scotland.
So read on to discover more about all of our new and updated titles of the week, and to find out more about the release of previously banned book Lady Chatterley’s Lover in November 1960, which was penned by Nottinghamshire author D.H. Lawrence.
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And so it’s only fitting that we begin our journey through our duo of new titles this week in Nottinghamshire, with the Nottingham Evening News. The Nottingham Evening News traces its history all the way back to 1885, when it was founded as a Liberal daily newspaper, costing just one halfpenny. With a circulation ‘through the principal towns and villages around Nottingham,’ this title contained the ‘latest foreign and home news,’ as well as ‘local and district, sporting, cricket and general news.’
And indeed, by the 1950s, the content of the Nottingham Evening News had not changed much, as the publication featured national and world news, and lots of reports from the world of sport. Across the title’s eight pages, you could find reports on different types of sport, from darts to football, from cricket to dog racing.
Alongside such sporting news, the Nottingham Evening News also featured a range of different advertisements, incorporating such sections as ‘Situations Vacant’ and ‘Tenders.’ You could also find within its pages details of dances and whist games, as well as letters from readers and details of what was on television and radio.
In 1963 the Nottingham Evening News was acquired by rival the Nottingham Evening Post, becoming the Evening Post and News. The title is now known as the Nottingham Post, and continues to be published to this day.
Our second new title of the week is from Somerset, and it is the Weston & Worle News. This newspaper was launched in 1985 to cover the north Somerset resort town of Weston-super-Mare and its neighbouring village of Worle, stretching as far inland to incorporate Winscombe in the Mendip Hills.
Appearing every Thursday, the Weston & Worle News was a weekly freesheet that was distributed to over 35,000 homes in the area. With its editorial offices in Clevedon, also in north Somerset, the last edition of this newspaper appeared in February 2009.
Taking a look now at our updated titles of the week, we’ve added over 29,000 brand new pages to the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph, with over 19,000 brand new pages joining the Bristol Evening Post, and over 16,000 brand new pages being added to the Cambridge Daily News. We’ve also added new pages to one of our Scottish titles, the Galloway News and Kirkcudbrightshire Advertiser, whist the year 1989 joins special sports title the Football Post (Nottingham)
November 1960 – Lady Chatterley’s Lover Hits The Bookshelves in Britain
In 1960 Penguin Books faced an obscenity trial in relation to the D.H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which had been published privately in 1928 but not released openly in the United Kingdom. The landmark ruling, given on 2 November 1960, declared Penguin Books ‘not guilty,’ and so copies of the infamous book went on sale in Britain on 10 November 1960.
Pages from our new title the Nottingham Evening News give a wonderful insight into the reaction to the verdict, and the subsequent sale of the book. Indeed, it gives a particularly special perspective, as author D.H. Lawrence had grown up eight miles away from Nottingham, in Eastwood, and a number of his relatives remained in the area.
On 3 November 1960, a day after the trial’s conclusion, the Nottingham Evening News reported how:
Vans loaded with copies of ‘LCL’ – unabridged, complete with all the four-letter words – were setting out from Penguin Books warehouses today on their way to bookshops and bookstalls all over Britain. Two hundred thousand copies of the book, Penguin’s initial print, with posters reading: ‘Now you can read it,’ are expected to have been distributed ready for sales to begin by next Thursday.
The release of the book, with its depiction of sex and use of swear words, was creating something of a buzz across the country. And the Nottingham Evening News was quick to capitalise on the buzz, interviewing D.H. Lawrence’s nephew William Lawrence at his dental surgery at St. Anne’s Well Road in Nottingham.
William ‘remembered the time when a very young uncle ‘Uncle Bert’ Lawrence lived with his family at their house at the corner of Sycamore-road and Woodborough-road, Nottingham, and the time when the author met Frieda at the students hostel at Mapperley,’ Frieda being D.H. Lawrence’s wife. Of the book, William told the Nottingham Evening News:
In my opinion it is a book for the intelligentsia. A book of this type should not be made freely available to a sensation-seeking public. I think the book is a classic and there is nothing pornographic in it. It is frank and is a standard work for study at university. But it is not suitable for the general public.
Meanwhile, it was discovered that an ‘unexpurgated edition’ of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, printed in Paris, had been in the Nottingham City Library ‘all the time.’ The Nottingham Evening News on 11 November 1960 reported how the banned book had been ‘in the book stocks at Nottingham Central Library for some years, but it has only been supplied to students who have to make a special application to get it.’
But now the book, far from being hidden away, was to form the central part of a forthcoming exhibition on D.H. Lawrence, which was set to be held at the library.
And local Nottinghamshire people were also expressing their thoughts on the infamous novel, including the rector of Eastwood, the birthplace of D.H. Lawrence. In a sermon to his congregation, the Reverend Peter Caporn talked of how ‘one might almost give [the book] to young people about to be married as a guide on love and matrimony,’ as reported the Nottingham Evening News on 21 November 1960.
Indeed, Caporn deemed the ‘sexual aspects’ of the novel to be ‘rather cold,’ declaring how he had been ‘bored’ by the work. He even said his sixteen-year-old son had read it, and ‘wasn’t shocked’ by its content. In a final stinging condemnation of D.H. Lawrence and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Caporn declared:
Frankly I don’t think the book has any particular literary merit. Lawrence was not a great writer. He could not create characters – they are puppets in whom I can never believe.
Finally, the Nottingham Evening News reported on 29 November 1960 how Lady Chatterley’s Lover was to be ‘banned from the public library at Long Eaton.’ The decision had been taken by the urban council, who voted by eleven votes to ten for the book to once more be removed from public circulation.
The library committee had expressed concern that if the book was to be readily available, it would be ‘available to children’ on library shelves. Mr. G.A. Sharpe, however, indicated his support for the book being in the library, stating how:
The people who read this book don’t want other people to read it. I have not read it and have no desire to read it. But what object is there in banning it when the top forms of our schools have read it?
Meanwhile, Mr. Tom Smith was of the opinion that the book be purchased for the library, as it ‘was up to the borrowers themselves if they wanted to read it.’
Find out more about the reaction to the release of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by searching the pages of our newspapers today.
New Titles
| Title | Years Added |
| Nottingham Evening News | 1956-1958, 1960-1963 |
| Weston & Worle News | 1997 |
Updated Titles
This week we have updated seventeen 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.
| Title | Years Added |
| Aldershot News | 1968 |
| Bracknell Times | 1989 |
| Bristol Evening Post | 1965, 1974 |
| Cambridge Daily News | 1970-1971 |
| Chester Chronicle | 1821-1822, 1884, 1886, 1888, 1898, 1900, 1964, 1973, 1977-1978, 1980, 1982, 1984 |
| Esher News and Mail | 1952, 1956-1957, 1965, 1973 |
| Football Post (Nottingham) | 1989 |
| Galloway News and Kirkcudbrightshire Advertiser | 1994 |
| Hinckley Times | 1962 |
| Medway News | 1996 |
| Newcastle Evening Chronicle | 1922 |
| Nottingham Evening Post | 1979 |
| Nottingham Guardian | 1892 |
| Runcorn Guardian | 1958-1959, 1964-1965, 1971, 1976, 1982 |
| Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph | 1946-1948, 1953, 1955-1956, 1958, 1960, 1962-1964, 1973, 1976-1979, 1981 |
| Staffordshire Sentinel | 1868 |
| Sunday Sun (Newcastle) | 1962 |
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.
