In December 1920 the world’s first illustrated weekly news magazine the Illustrated London News delved into the ‘curiosities and ingenuities‘ of the Patent Office, featuring some of Britain’s most unusual rejected patents. Illustrated by the publication’s own artist W.B. Robinson, the Illustrated London News presented a series of the bizarre designs that had been submitted to the Patent Office, but had since ‘lain dormant.’ We at The Archive were keen to delve into our collection’s cabinet of curiosities, and these …
1920s
In the early 1900s British authorities took a new approach to education: open air schools. Inspired by methods of teaching in Germany, these open air schools were intended to provide disadvantaged city children with fresh air, alleviating their poor health and preventing the spread of tuberculosis. In this special blog, using newspapers taken from our Archive, we will investigate the open air schools of the 1900s, from their early inception, to how they continued to play a role in education …
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Mercedes Gleitze (1900-1981) was the first British woman to swim the English Channel, and the first person to swim the Straits of Gibraltar. In an amazing career that spanned the 1920s and 1930s, Mercedes captured the imagination of the British public and became a household name. Born to German parents in Brighton, Mercedes was one of three sisters. Skilled in languages, she moved to London where she worked as a secretary and stenographer. Whilst living in London she began swimming …
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This week you might just be able to witness steam coming off our presses, as we have added an impressive 343,381 brand new pages to The Archive, with 22 brand new titles joining us this week alone. Comprising of special interest titles devoted to music and the cinema, as well as to different spheres of employment, from postal work to pawnbroking, our new titles this week are an eclectic mix, comprising also the regional and the international, covering the latest from both China and …
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Imagine yourself back in December 1925, with Christmas fast approaching, in London where: All the pavements are alive this week with purchasers moving in ceaseless procession from window to window as they search for the particular Christmas gift for the particular person who is to receive it. They wander down street after street, for London nowadays is the finest city in which to purchase a gift – humble, rich, or rare – that the world knows. It’s time for Christmas …
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This week at The Archive has been another incredibly busy one, as we have added 116,740 brand new pages, with eight brand new titles in all joining us. And all of our eight new titles of the week hail from Wales, and include two Welsh language newspapers, a specialist political title, and a shipping gazette. Meanwhile, we have updated 26 of our existing titles. So read on to discover more about our eight brand new titles of the week, as well as to find out …
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By November 1920, some ‘three millions of money‘ had been spent on ‘memorials of various kinds and designs…in the United Kingdom,’ as reported the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald. In today’s money, that’s roughly £87,000,000 – the equivalent of £2 donated by every person in Britain. The strength of the nation’s desire to remember their war dead is manifested in these memorials, as the population struggled to come to terms with the great losses suffered during the First World War, in which …
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This week at The Archive we have added 99,778 brand new pages, with seven brand new special interest titles joining our collection over the past seven days, which provide an incredible snapshot of early twentieth century culture. From cars to yachts, from movies to the modern man, our new titles this week furnish an exciting panorama of what life was like over one hundred years ago. Meanwhile, we have extensive updates to some of our existing titles, with over 50,000 pages being added to …
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…the credence in the phenomena of Spiritualism is very general. In fact, it is popular. Belief is common. It is widespread. It exists amongst all sorts of people, from the highest to the lowest. You find it in Mayfair and you find it in the remotest village. from ‘The Popularity of Spiritualism,’ The Globe, 29 December 1919 By the end of 1919, belief in Spiritualism was ‘spreading like wildfire.’ Spiritualism is defined as a relatively modern religion that is based on …
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This August at The Archive we will be taking a look at the history of the Great British seaside, from bathing machines to bathing costumes, and today in this special blog we will explore one of the seaside’s most familiar sites: the beach hut. The Sphere | 30 November 1957 Using our newspapers, we will take a look at how the beach hut became popular, and how in the 1920s and 1930s newspaper columns brimmed with advice on how to furnish …