This week is another bumper week for new and updated titles on The Archive, as we have added another 115,438 brand new pages to our site. We are delighted to welcome five new titles to our ever-expanding collection, and on top of this, we have additions to thirteen of our existing titles.

We continue to augment our Scottish holdings this week, our five new titles all hailing from north of the border. Our earliest publication this week is the Fifeshire Journal, which was a weekly publication based in Kirkcaldy. One of our other new publications this week is the Mussleburgh News, covering Mussleburgh in East Lothian. A weekly publication, appearing every Friday, we are delighted to have over a half a century’s worth of coverage for this title.

Mussleburgh News | 20 December 1889

Another new local weekly title is the Coatbridge Leader, which appeared every Saturday, and another Saturday publication the Blairgowrie Advertiser, which is still running to this day.

Rounding off our new titles this week is the Port-Glasgow Express. Published every Friday, and with photographs into the twentieth-century, this newspaper covers the town of Port Glasgow. Port Glasgow has a fascinating history, and was initially just a small fishing hamlet. But large ships struggled to navigate further up the Clyde to Glasgow, and so in 1668 the hamlet became a remote port for Glasgow, earning the locality the name ‘New Port Glasgow.’ The ‘new’ was dropped a hundred or so years later, and the town became home to dry docks and the shipbuilding industry.

Port-Glasgow Express | 16 February 1951

We have updated twelve of our existing Scottish titles this week, with highlights including the 26,378 pages we have added to the North British Daily Mail, spanning the years 1849 to 1894. Other significant updates include those to the Wishaw Press, with 17,552 pages covering the later half of the twentieth century.

Our thirteenth new title to be updated this week is the Newbury Weekly News and General Advertiser. Based in Berkshire, and appearing every Thursday, the newspaper was founded in 1867 and continues to be published today. We have more updates planned for this title, so make sure to watch out for more new pages for this title joining The Archive.

One hundred years ago this November the first ever Remembrance Day was observed in Britain and the Commonwealth. Originally known as Armistice Day, the tradition of the two minutes’ silence in remembrance of the fallen originated from King George V, who, according to the Illustrated London News, desired:

that at the hour when the Armistice came into force, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, there may be, for the brief space of two minutes, a complete suspension of all our normal activities. During that time…all work, all sound and all locomotion should cease, so that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the Glorious Dead.

Two minutes silence at The Cenotaph | Illustrated London News | 15 November 1919

Two of our newly added titles, the Mussleburgh News and the Coatbridge Leader, provide local accounts of how this silence was observed.

The Mussleburgh News reports on the ‘strange and striking effect’ of the two minutes of silence, and how ‘The King’s call was almost universally obeyed not only in this country but throughout the empire.’ The newspaper goes on to describe how the silence was observed in Edinburgh, where firing of guns from the castle signaled the beginning of the observance.

Men and women stood still, vehicles stopped, and ‘bustle ceased.’ The reporter was struck by the ‘universality of the observance,’ and how it was a ‘poignant moment of remembrance of the dead, and many people must have had a momentary flash of the loved ones who had left the to die for their country.’

London stands still | Illustrated London News | 15 November 1919

Meanwhile in Coatbridge, a siren ‘wailed’ from Lamont House, ‘reminding all hearers that the appropriate time for remembering the noble dead was at hand.’ The Coatbridge Leader reports how that ‘In the various works the machinery was stopped, tramcars, trains, and vehicles were halted.’

To many who have come through the hades of the past five years’ turmoil, it was a trying remembrance, as the memories of companions now at rest in foreign soil and beneath alien skies were recalled. In many a home the vacant chairs would recall memories of poignant grief for those well-beloved who sacrificed their lives that we might be freed from an aggressor. Many a silent tear was dropped, many a heartfelt prayer was uttered as the reminder came of the voices that are stilled, of the touch of hands vanished into eternity.

 New Titles

Updated Titles

This week we have updated thirteen 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.

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.