Among the thousands of accounts of the First World War, you can find in the Archive, one publication stands out as a leading source of reportage and news surrounding the conflict: The Sunday Post. In June 1915, the Post printed the first-hand experiences of Private Harry Wells, a soldier in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. Private Wells tells his incredible story in this article, entitled ‘My Experiences in the Fighting Line from Mons to Ypres’. In it, we’re given an …
Headlines from History
Last month saw a fantastic 275,220 pages added to 98 different British Newspaper titles, including 16,610 pages added to the Buckingham Advertiser and North Bucks Free Press, and 25,377 pages added to the Public Ledger and Commercial and General Advertiser. Subscribe for just £12.95 –> Thousands of new pages from local titles to explore You’ll find a full list of last month’s additions below. We hope you enjoy exploring! TITLE NUM OF PAGES Aberdeen Journal, and General Advertiser for the North of …
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The bombing of civilian targets in Britain during the Second World War is now commonly referred to as ‘The Blitz’. The song ‘All Stick Together’ released by Ralph Butler in 1939 summarised the need for Britain to pull together as a nation against the threat of an invasion, and the ‘Blitz Spirit’ has gone down in history and is still invoked today in times of strife. However, whilst the vast majority of the population may have been sticking together, there …
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Today marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon’s defeat by The Duke of Wellington and the Allied Forces finally concluded a nail-biting campaign during which the fate of Europe had hung in the balance, and ushered in nearly a century of relative peace. So now, as celebrations and commemorations abound, our minds have naturally turned to how the news broke two centuries ago… This wonderful extract from the Morning Post, Thursday 22 June 1815, paints a vivid picture of the …
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We added an amazing 154,078 pages to the British Newspaper Archive last month, including 49,420 for the Saunders’s News-Letter and 26,572 for the Sevenoaks Chronicle, Westerham Courier & Kentish Advertiser. These new additions took our total number of pages to 10,932,393 pages at the end of May! Subscribe for just £12.95 –> Thousands of new pages from local titles to explore You’ll find a full list of last month’s additions below, with the new titles highlighted in bold. We hope you enjoy exploring! …
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100 years ago today, the worst rail disaster in British history occurred at Quintinshill near Gretna Green in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. On May 22nd 1915, a devastating crash involving a total of five trains, killed 226 people and injured a further 246. The vast majority of those killed were territorial soldiers of the 1/7th (Leith) Battalion, Royal Scots, on their way to participate in the Gallipoli campaign. Disaster stuck when a troop train headed for Liverpool struck a passenger train that …
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This blog was submitted by Professor Brian Cathcart. Brian is a professor of journalism at Kingston University London. His book, The News From Waterloo: the race to tell Britain of Wellington’s victory, is published on 30 April by Faber & Faber, price £16.99 How long did it take for the news of Waterloo to reach London? In this bicentenary year of the battle it is something we might expect to know, but the facts turned out to be surprisingly …
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April was a wonderful month for new publications, with 10 titles added to the British Newspaper Archive. These included the Berwickshire Advertiser for years between 1830-1955, The Derry Journal, and Glasgow Sentinel. Subscribe for just £12.95 –> Thousands of new pages from local titles to explore You’ll find a full list of last month’s additions below, with the new titles highlighted in bold. We hope you enjoy exploring! Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 1863, 1868 – 1870 Ayrshire Express 1863 Berwickshire Advertiser, The 1830, 1834, …
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On 30 April 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin bunker. After his death, Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz took the reins of power and headed a new administration known as the Flensburg Government. On May the 7th, Dönitz and his staff met with allied commanders in Reims, France to sign the formal act of military surrender ending nearly 6 years of total war in Europe. Celebrations erupted throughout the world from Moscow to Melbourne. More than one million people took …
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Lonely hearts columns aren’t a modern phenomenon. Search our historical newspapers and you’ll find numerous examples of ‘matrimonial advertisements’ from the 1800s and 1900s. The notices can often make for amusing reading. We’ve collected together a few of our favourites to provide you with some tips for finding love. You may or may not want to take the advice… 1) Be overly specific and insulting An American woman advertised for a husband in 1920, advising that he ‘can have …