Another week here at The Archive and we’re delighted to introduce yet another brand new newspaper title to our collection, Yorkshire’s Pudsey & Stanningley News. The newness does not stop there, however, as we’ve added 206,336 brand new pages to The Archive all together over the last seven days. Meanwhile, from Ballymena to Barnoldswick, from Wolverhampton to Worthing, from Halifax to Hartlepool, we’ve updated 25 of our existing titles from across the UK and Ireland.

So read on to discover more about our fantastic new title of the week, the Pudsey & Stanningley News, and also to learn which of our existing titles we have updated. We also remember the Clifton Hall colliery disaster of 18 June 1885, which took the lives of 178 men and boys.

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First stop is Pudsey, as we welcome the Pudsey & Stanningley News to our collection. An ‘independent journal,’ the Pudsey & Stanningley News was established in 1872 and was the ‘newspaper of the Pudsey Parliamentary Division,’ with a circulation ‘throughout the towns forming the division, and also largely within the boroughs of Leeds and Bradford.’

A weekly newspaper, the title was printed in the market town of Pudsey, which is historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, but now lies in the City of Leeds borough. The Pudsey & Stanningley News focused mainly on the news from the area, presenting summarised news items from the likes of Pudsey, Stanningley, Farsley, Drightlington, Adwalton, Eccleshill, Idle, Rodley, Calverley, Shipley, Bramley, Lower Wortley, Yeadon, Horsforth, and Armley. The newspaper also printed ‘Local Echoes,’ whilst reporting on the latest from local organisations like the Calverley School Board and the Bramley Union Workhouse.

Alongside such local news, the Pudsey & Stanningley News published updates from parliament. Appearing every Friday, the Yorkshire newspaper also covered football news, whilst printing serialised fiction and notices of births, marriages and deaths.

By the late 1880s the Pudsey & Stanningley News claimed to be ‘one of the Largest Halfpenny Weekly Papers in the Country.’ Some 80 years later, the newspaper changed its title to become the Pudsey News, whilst in 1982 the publication became known as the Pudsey Times.

It was all change at the paper, as it shifted from a Friday publication schedule to a Thursday publication day. Sadly, alongside the Leeds Weekly News, the title closed at the beginning of July 2012.

That’s it from our brand new Pudsey title, but there’s still plenty for you to enjoy from our updated titles this week. By far and away our largest update of the week are the over 70,000 brand new pages that we’ve added to the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, whilst over 34,000 brand new pages have joined the Wolverhampton Express and Star. We’ve got some representation too across the Irish Sea, with updates to the Ballymena Weekly Telegraph and to the Irish Independent. Finally, we’ve updated one of our fantastic Scottish titles, namely the Kirriemuir Herald.

18 June 1885 – The Clifton Hall Colliery Disaster

On the morning of the 18 June 1885 disaster struck the Clifton Hall colliery in the Manchester Coalfield, as an explosion killed 178 men and boys. Over a week later on 26 June 1885, our new newspaper title the Pudsey & Stanningley News reported on the ‘terrible colliery explosion.’ The short piece detailed how the bodies of the victims had ‘been recovered from the pit,’ whilst ‘the awful calamity has caused a great sensation throughout the district.’

The Pudsey & Stanningley News went on to relate how ‘the Queen has sent a letter expressing her grief and sympathy, and some large subscriptions have been made towards a relief fund,’ whilst ‘the cause of the explosion is believed to be owing to the collection of a large quantity of gas in a worked out area, becoming in some way ignited.’

Meanwhile, our other newspapers were on hand to provide reports of the disaster on the day that it happened. The Edinburgh Evening News, for example, on 18 June 1885 reported on the ‘colliery explosion’ in its ‘latest telegrams’ section. This report contains a surprising degree of detail, the paper outlining how:

Information reached Manchester this afternoon that a colliery explosion has occurred at the Clifton Mine of Messrs Knowles & Sons, Pendlebury, and that a number of lives have been lost. There is a great excitement in the district, and a body of county constabulary have been telegraphed for and sent to the pit to keep the crowd of people on the pit bank in order, and doctors have also been sent.

The Edinburgh Evening News described how a ‘later telegram’ expressed the fear that the ‘loss of life has been terrible,’ whilst going into greater detail about the incident itself:

At half-past nine o’clock men on the pit bank were starled [sic] by a loud report, followed at once by the belching of smoke and debris from the shaft, and a great vibration under foot. Some sparks of fire were also seen. It was realised at once that an explosion had occurred, and as from 100 to 150 men and boys were in the pits, the greatest excitement and alarm was felt as to the result.

The Scottish newspaper drew on multiple different telegrams for its reporting, also including an update from the Press Association. This particular telegram described how ‘the lives of 349 men were jeopardised’ by ‘an explosion of fire-damp.’ 160 men ‘were working in one level in which the explosion occurred,’ and rescue efforts were hampered ‘because of the falling coal through the explosion.’ However, by noon, 120 men had been rescued.

Discover more about the Clifton Hall disaster, mining history, and much more besides, in the pages of our newspaper Archive today.

New Titles

Updated Titles

This week we have updated 25 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.