This week at The Archive we have been busy adding 272,091 brand new pages to our collection, whilst we have also taken a look at an eventful week for the British royal family in early April 1900. Meanwhile, we have added two brand new titles to our library of newspapers, whilst from Banbury to Belfast, from Falkirk to Fleetwood, from Retford to Ripon, we have updated 22 of our existing titles from across the United Kingdom.
So read on to discover more about our two new titles of the week, which hail from Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire respectively, as well as to learn which of our 22 titles we have updated. You can also find out more about the royal family’s very eventful week back in April 1900, in which a royal birth, an assassination attempt, and a rare visit to Ireland all occurred.
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We begin our foray through the headlines of the past in Daventry, Northamptonshire, as we welcome the Daventry and District Weekly Express to The Archive. This local newspaper traces its roots all the way back to the 1860s in the market town of Daventry, where it appeared every Saturday and featured ‘local news and advertisements,’ as well as the latest news from London.
Conservative in its politics, in 1940 the newspaper, which was then known as simply the Daventry Express, was discontinued due to wartime paper shortages. However, it was later revived in 1948 as the Daventry and District Weekly Express, its title then being shortened to the Daventry Weekly Express in 1966.
In 1990 the title reverted to its original name of the Daventry Express, and the local newspaper is published to this day, appearing every Thursday.
Our next stop is the cathedral city of Lincoln, as we welcome our second brand new title of the week to The Archive, the Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser. This newspaper first appeared on 31 October 1896 at the cost of just one penny, and it straightaway set out its trailblazing Liberal agenda. The paper’s debut editorial announced how:
To-day Lincoln again has a Liberal newspaper. The fact that at least one half of the people of the city have been politically unrepresented in the local Press has made the starting of a new Liberal paper imperative…Now, all the Lincoln journals are in Tory hands, and if Liberalism is to have a voice through the printing press it is essential that some such enterprise as we are undertaking should be speedily commenced.
The editorial, which pulled no punches, continued:
We wish to be quite frank and clear with our readers at starting. The tone of this journal will be that of a bold, outspoken, thorough Radicalism. The men who own the paper and write for it are convinced and consistent Liberals…In this journal there will be no shilly-shallying, no playing fast and loose with principle, no shirking of straight talk upon whatever subjects be currently interesting the public. We shall aim at being the organ of all who are democratic enough to dare to say straight out what they think.
Filling eight pages, and appearing every Saturday, this passionately Liberal paper unsurprisingly reported on all things Liberal and Lincoln, with columns entitled ‘Lincoln Liberals’ and ‘Liberals in Lincolnshire.’ A lively newspaper, the Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser went beyond its political remit to feature an ‘Illustrated News Letter,’ alongside such sections as ‘Fashions and Fancies,’ which was also illustrated, and ‘Tea Table Chat.’
By the turn of the century the Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser was doing so well that it was able to describe itself as ‘an influential newspaper circulating throughout Lincolnshire.’ With branch offices in both Gainsborough and Market Rasen, it enjoyed ‘a wide reputation as a well conducted journal, and is specially suited to the requirements of a large industrial centre in a vast agricultural county.’
True to its position as an organ for an agricultural area, the Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser printed a ‘Farmer’s Letter.’ It also provided entertainment through serialised fiction, education through looks at Lincoln’s history, as well as updates on current affairs, sourced from both ‘home and abroad.’
Before we take a look at the eventful week for the royal family in April 1900, we wanted to highlight that thousands of updated pages have joined some of our existing titles this week. Continuing with our Northamptonshire theme, some of our largest updates are to the Northampton Mercury and the Northampton Chronicle and Echo. Leading the charge, however, are the over 35,000 brand new pages we have added to the Wolverhampton Express and Star. Meanwhile, the Ripon Gazette, the Morecambe Visitor and the Melton Mowbray Times and Vale of Belvoir Gazette all see significant updates this week.
We’ve also updated five of our Scottish titles this week, with new pages joining the likes of the Edinburgh Evening News and the Shetland Times. Finally, we have also added new pages to the historic Belfast News-Letter over the last seven days.
A Birth, An Assassination Attempt and a Royal Visit
On 7 April 1900 the Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser looked back on what ‘had been an eventful week for the Royal family.’ The week begun with the happy news of the arrival of a royal baby, the newspaper describing how ‘on Saturday another son was added to the Duchess of York’s little family, bringing up the number of the Queen’s children to seventy-four.’
This son was Prince Henry, the third son of the Duke and Duchess of York, who would later become the Duke of Gloucester, his parents becoming King George V and Queen Mary.
However, things took a dark turn for the royal family by the Wednesday of that week, the 4 April 1900. The Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser reported how:
On Wednesday, an attempt was made at Brussels to assassinate the Prince of Wales by a juvenile Anarchist, as the Prince was steaming out of the railway station on his way to Copenhagen. The assailant, who was a mere beardless youth of fifteen years, fired two shots, both of which, fortunately, passed wide.
This was, the Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser notes, the ‘first time our popular Prince has been attacked.’
A week later on 14 April 1900, the same newspaper went into greater detail about the ‘attempt on the life of the Prince of Wales,’ even featuring illustrations to accompany the story. The article describes how the Prince and Princess of Wales had left Charing Cross for Dover, en route to Copenhagen to ‘attend the festivities in connection with the celebration…of the 82nd birthday of the King of Denmark, and to spend Easter there.’
‘All went merrily,’ the Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser relates, until ‘the Royal party were leaving the Northern Station at Brussels, at 5.15 in the afternoon.’ This was when ‘a youth of 16,’ named Sipido, ‘fired two revolver shots at the Prince, happily with no disastrous effect.’ One bullet ‘hit the cushion beside the Prince,’ whilst the second shot was a missfire.
The Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser describes how the ‘stationmaster immediately stopped the train and ascertained that the Prince had not been touched.’ It appeared as though the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) was nonplussed by the incident. Having asked if the ‘man had been arrested,’ which he had been, ‘the Prince of Wales was not in the least excited, and he at once continued his journey.’
But what had prompted this assassination attempt upon one of the most prominent members of the royal family? The Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser was on hand to elaborate:
It appears that the attempt was premeditated. Sipido being instigated by another, on whose advice he bought a revolver at the Old Market, paying three francs for it. He went to a meeting at the Flemish theatre with this person, and afterwards visited the Maison du Peuple, where he had a drink. Finally, he went to the St. Gilles public-house and wrote a letter to inform his parents that he had obtained the situation he was after. After making inquiries at the Nord station respecting the time of the arrival of the Royal train, he left the station and entered a cafe in the vicinity. He loaded his revolver in the lavatory. Sipido seems to have fostered the notion that the Prince of Wales was responsible for the war in South Africa, and was determined to make himself the ‘avenger of humanity’ by killing his Royal Highness.
On the same day, 4 April 1900, another member of the British royal family was engaged in a memorable event, a rare visit to Dublin. On the same day that her son survived an assassination attempt, Queen Victoria, according to the Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser, received a ‘warm welcome’ from ‘Nationalist Ireland.’
Indeed, the newspaper described how:
In wealth of decoration, in warmth of welcome, Dublin seems to have surpassed even London in its loyalist moods. The Queen was received by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and the City Marshal (Mr. J.H. Parnell), brother of the late Irish leader. Ireland has always had a warm regard for the Queen, and history records that, when at the commencement of her reign English Tories were plotting to depose the maiden, Irish Nationalists were banding themselves together for her support and protection.
So ended an eventful week for the royal family. Discover more about the royal family and history as it happened in the pages of our Archive today.
New Titles
| Title | Years Added |
| Daventry and District Weekly Express | 1986-1988, 1990-1991, 1993, 2001-2002 |
| Lincoln Leader and County Advertiser | 1896, 1899-1911, 1913-1929 |
Updated Titles
This week we have updated 22 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 |
| Alnwick Mercury | 1965-1968, 1993-1997 |
| Banbury Guardian | 1961-1963, 1978, 1980-1981 |
| Belfast News-Letter | 1985 |
| Brighouse Echo | 1986 |
| Cumbernauld News | 1992 |
| Edinburgh Evening News | 1947-1950 |
| Falkirk Herald | 1863 |
| Fife Free Press, & Kirkcaldy Guardian | 1974-1978, 1993 |
| Fleetwood Weekly News | 1992-1993, 1995-1997 |
| Hemel Hempstead Gazette and West Herts Advertiser | 1982 |
| Leamington Spa Courier | 1985-1986 |
| Melton Mowbray Times and Vale of Belvoir Gazette | 1887-1889, 1943-1960, 1994, 1996-1998 |
| Morecambe Visitor | 1988, 1990-1991, 2001 |
| Morpeth Herald | 1928-1934, 1955-1964, 1996-1997 |
| Northampton Chronicle and Echo | 1992-1993 |
| Northampton Mercury | 1989-1990, 1992-1994 |
| Retford, Worksop, Isle of Axholme and Gainsborough News | 1992-1995, 1997-1998 |
| Ripon Gazette | 1877, 1879, 1889, 1987, 1992-1995, 2001 |
| Shetland Times | 1986 |
| Shields Daily Gazette | 1988 |
| South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times | 1983 |
| Wolverhampton Express and Star | 1966-1968 |
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.
