This week at The Archive we are delighted to welcome a brand new title from the sunny south coast, the Bournemouth Times and Directory, as we take a moment to remember the devastating Bournemouth Blitz. In all, over the last seven days, we’ve added 366,686 brand new pages to our collection, whilst we’ve updated 25 of our existing titles from across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
So, from Buckingham to Burnley, from Dingwall to Driffield, from Mid Sussex to Mid Ulster, read on to discover more about our new and updated titles of the week, and also to learn about the Bournemouth Blitz, which took place on 23 May 1943.
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Our solo new title of the week is a great one, and so we’re delighted to be joined by the Bournemouth Times and Directory. This weekly title was originally founded as the Bournemouth Visitors’ Directory in 1858, which offered a guide to the burgeoning seaside resort. Indeed, the resort town of Bournemouth, historically a part of Hampshire and now assigned to the county of Dorset, boomed after the opening of the Ringwood, Christchurch and Bournemouth Railway in 1870. It became home to a myriad of hotels and theatres, for which the Bournemouth Visitors’ Directory acted as a guide.
In 1919 the title assumed its new form of the Bournemouth Times and Directory, becoming a repository of news as well as a guide to the seaside town. Appearing every Friday at the cost of 2d, a little more than the average newspaper of the time, perhaps because of its higher twelve page count, the Bournemouth Times and Directory acted as an immensely thorough guide to the happenings in Bournemouth and its environs.
For example, its front page would typically list the entertainment on offer in Bournemouth that week, as well as advertising the town’s restaurants. Meanwhile, inside the paper a ‘guide to all the principal shows’ was provided, listing what the local theatres like the Theatre Royal, the Regent, the Pavilion and the King’s Hall were showing.
Meanwhile, the Bournemouth Times and Directory reported on the serious news from the town, publishing the latest news from the Borough Council, the local police courts, and church notices. The paper also took in all the news from the ‘town and district,’ incorporating updates from the likes of Burton, Highcliffe, Hinton Admiral, Christchurch, Parkstone, Branksome, and Broadstone. Sport was another focus of the Bournemouth Times and Directory, with reports on the local football, rugby, and hockey fixtures, as well as a column dedicated to the ‘Week’s Angling News.’
Moreover, the people of Bournemouth were really at the heart of the Bournemouth Times and Directory. The paper was filled with photos of local events and personalities, such as the great-grandmother who was ‘dancing still.’ The Bournemouth Times and Directory reported extensively on weddings in the area, as well as on the passing of local personalities, with the newspaper printing a comprehensive list of births, marriages and deaths.
That’s it from our solo new title of the week, but with 25 titles updated this week, there’s still plenty for you to explore. With the most new pages this week, we have Dingwall title the Ross-shire Journal, which sees over 42,000 brand new pages join its ranks. We’ve added new pages to another Scottish title this week too, the Inverness Courier, whilst we’ve updated four of our titles from Northern Ireland, namely the Lurgan Mail, the Mid-Ulster Mail, the Northern Whig and the Portadown Times. Meanwhile, our second biggest update of the week is to the Northampton Chronicle and Echo, to which we have added over 31,000 brand new pages.
23 May 1943 – The Bournemouth Blitz
On 23 May 1943 the seaside town of Bournemouth was hit by an unexpected German bombing raid, which killed 131 people and damaged 3,359 buildings. On 28 May 1943 the Bournemouth Times and Directory published an incredibly raw account of the attack, which became known as the Bournemouth Blitz.
Under the headline ‘How Germans Wage Warfare on Sunday – Full Story of Lightning Raid,’ the article described how:
They came in out of the blue of a Springtime Sunday. A few stragglers on the sea front saw them coming. But they were only small black specks against the blue horizon, far out over the lazy lapping sea and little notice was taken. They were nothing. But they were the harbingers of death and swift destruction, and they were coming with incredible speed.
At first, the people of Bournemouth saw no threat from the ‘little black specks,’ the ‘German planes loaded with bombs.’ As the piece described, Bournemouth was an unusual choice for an attack, as it lacked any particular strategic significance:
There was no military objective here, no arsenal, or giant factories threatening the enemy country; just a large number of ordinary people, fathers and mothers and children, preparing to sit down to a Sunday meal, and visitors planning with their families the peaceful pleasures of a Sunday in this green and lovely spot.
The injustice and the horror of what then unfolded pours out of the lines published by the Bournemouth Times and Directory, in a piece, which because of wartime censorship, could not even print the name of the town that had suffered so much:
There were four drama packed, dreadful minutes. This was no heroic battle of the air, no epic struggle for a bridge, no contending with their equals…This was murder. For those four minutes they had the sky and they unloaded their bombs. Impossible not to hit something and to hit something big, where it could be counted for certain that there would be many people under the ruins. They loosed their bombs and their machine guns spat in this direction or that, wherever a few civilians were seen.
Indeed, like its contemporary newspapers, the Bournemouth Times and Directory could only refer to its home place of Bournemouth as a ‘southern town.’ The paper, meanwhile, went on to relate the damage that had been done by the German bombers:
Two large hotels, three departmental stores, a Methodist Church, a garage, and a cinema had the worst effects of the raid in the centre of the town. Bombs also fell at other points and in residential areas of the town where houses were demolished. The National Fire Service dealt with three large fires, which were all extinguished before nightfall. One building, a big store, was completely gutted and premises on the other side of the road suffered serious damage. Casualties were heavy and included some people who were machine gunned as the enemy planes flashed roof high over the town.
The paper too related how ‘a number of visitors to the town were among the fatal casualties, and others had miraculous escapes, having left their hotels a moment or two before the raid.’ One visitor to have lost his life was a Mr. H.L. Sikes, who worked for the Ministry of Home Security, and had been in Bournemouth ‘in connection with the provision of school shelters and had conferred on the previous day with Corporation officials.’
The Bournemouth Times and Directory went on to describe how ‘two hotels, the bars of which were full at the time, received direct hits, and rescue squads, including hundreds from the crowds which assembled, worked on through the afternoon and night.’ Amongst the horror, however, came some stories of hope:
There are many stories of amazing escapes of people who were trapped for many hours under the heavy debris. One woman was rescued alive after being trapped for over 18 hours. A short time earlier a man was pulled out and walked away apparently unscathed.
This piece from the Bournemouth Times and Directory provides an incredibly visceral and impassioned reaction to an unimaginable event. It has been posited that Bournemouth was attacked because there were lots of R.A.F. members billeted in the town, but for those who experienced the Bournemouth Blitz on 23 May 1943, the horror would never be wiped away from their minds. In the weeks following, the newspaper chronicles the town’s response to the raid, which you can follow here.
Find out more about the Bournemouth Blitz, the Second World War, and much more besides, in the pages of our newspapers today.
New Titles
| Title | Years Added |
| Bournemouth Times and Directory | 1934-1950 |
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.
| Title | Years Added |
| Banbury Guardian | 1991, 1997, 2002, 2004 |
| Barnoldswick & Earby Times | 1996, 2004 |
| Bexhill-on-Sea Observer | 1994, 2001 |
| Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press | 2004 |
| Burnley Express | 1986, 2004 |
| Chorley Guardian | 1889 |
| Driffield Times | 1995, 2002-2004 |
| Eastbourne Herald | 1986, 2004 |
| Epworth Bells, Crowle and Isle of Axholme Messenger | 1905-1909, 1920-1927, 1929, 1943-1949, 1960-1969, 1980-1981, 2004 |
| Inverness Courier | 1950-1956, 1978-1979, 1990 |
| Lurgan Mail | 1999, 2004 |
| Market Rasen Weekly Mail | 1987-1988, 1992, 2004 |
| Mid Sussex Times | 1981, 1991, 2004 |
| Mid-Ulster Mail | 1988-1989, 2001, 2004 |
| Milton Keynes Citizen | 2003 |
| Morecambe Guardian | 2004 |
| Morecambe Visitor | 1877, 1910, 1993, 2004 |
| Northampton Chronicle and Echo | 1951, 1988, 1990, 1995 |
| Northern Whig | 1920, 1958-1962 |
| Portadown Times | 1964-1970, 1999 |
| Ross-shire Journal | 1877, 1913-1994 |
| Scarborough Evening News | 2003 |
| Shields Daily Gazette | 1986 |
| Spilsby Standard | 1991, 2003-2004 |
| Whitley Bay Guardian | 2003-2004 |
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.
