This week we have added 132,230 brand new pages to The Archive. We are delighted to welcome over 100,000 pages to our specialist country pursuits publication Field, which covers an array of topics, such as farming, fishing and country house management. It is a wonderful window into the world of the Victorian country gentleman, and we now have 2,348 issues available to search.
We have also added new pages to two of our Staffordshire titles – the Walsall Observer, and South Staffordshire Chronicle and the Staffordshire Sentinel. These new pages cover the late 1890s and early 1900s, and we found this intriguing announcement in a 1894 edition of the the Walsall Observer, and South Staffordshire Chronicle:
On Monday for the first time since the formal opening by the Prince of Wales, the Tower Bridge was thrown open for general traffic both by day and night in perpetuity.
Construction on London’s iconic Tower Bridge began in 1886, and using pages from our Archive, we can discover more about its opening on 30th June 1894 by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII).
According to the Leeds Times, ‘A finer day than Saturday could not be imagined, and with royal weather there was a right royal greeting to the Heir Apparent and his gracious Princess as they drove in state through the city to open the Tower Bridge, London’s latest connection between the north and south sides of the River.’
The royal party was apparently greeted with adulation, and the ‘cheers rolled in a continuous roar.’ According to the Kirkintilloch Herald, the Prince of Wales gave the following speech as he opened the new bridge:
It is a great satisfaction to the Princess of Wales and myself to be permitted, on behalf of the Queen, my dear mother, to open the Tower Bridge across the River Thames…The bridge will be an enduring monument of the well-directed energy and public spirit of the Corporation of London; it will also serve as an example of the splendid engineering skill bestowed upon its construction.
Onlookers watching the opening of Tower Bridge | The Graphic | 7 July 1894
And then, with a ‘good deal of hand and flag signalling…the first span of the bridge, slowly rose, by far the most impressive thing of the day.’ After the opening of Tower Bridge, most of the party repaired to the West India Docks, where they were treated to a display of life-saving methods.
You can find some wonderful illustrations of the opening of Tower Bridge in The Archive by searching for ‘Tower Bridge,’ and restricting your search to ‘illustrations’ and the year 1894.
Updated Titles
This week we have updated three 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 |
| Field | 1853-1856, 1858, 1860, 1862-1863, 1865-1868, 1870-1877, 1879-1881, 1884-1900 |
| Walsall Observer, and South Staffordshire Chronicle | 1894, 1896, 1898-1899, 1901 |
| Staffordshire Sentinel | 1903-1905 |
Register now and explore the Archive
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.
