dance | The British Newspaper Archive Blog - Part 10

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we have added 51,894 brand new pages, which span over 120 years of history, to our collection. Furthermore, we are delighted to welcome two brand new titles, namely Nottinghamshire’s Beeston Gazette and Echo, and Berkshire’s Maidenhead Advertiser. Over the past seven days we’ve also been busily adding to some of our existing titles – read on to find out more. Register now and explore the Archive Published in Beeston, three and a half miles south-west of Nottingham, the Beeston Gazette and Echo appeared

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we are delighted to announce the addition of nearly 200,000 brand new pages, having added 198,676 new pages in the last seven days. We have updated five of our English titles, spanning the north west and south west of the country, as well as one national title. Meanwhile, our other updated title hails from north of the border, coming from Dundee. Register now and explore the Archive Moreover, this week sees an incredible breadth of historical coverage in

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‘London’s Greatest Bohemian Rendezvous’ – The Caravan Club, Endell Street

For just over a month in the summer of 1934, the Caravan Club in Endell Street, Holborn, was ‘London’s Greatest Bohemian Rendezvous.’ A safe space for society’s outcasts, it was a temporary haven for London’s marginalised LGBTQ community, home to an eclectic mix of clientele, from cabaret performers to bright young things. But in the early morning of 25 August 1934, the music ended. London’s Caravan Club was raided by the Metropolitan Police, whilst both its owners and members faced

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Hooligans and Gangsters? A Look at the Teddy Boys of the 1950s

‘…coloured velvet collars and cuffs, trousers that were so tight they couldn’t sit down in them, belts on the back of their jackets, long narrow ties like bootlaces,’  this is of course the style of the Teddy Boys, the British youth subculture which defined the 1950s, as described in the Londonderry Sentinel. The Sphere | 22 September 1956 The Teddy Boys, embracing the Edwardian style of decades before, were a threat to the status quo in a way that Britain had never quite

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What Should a Teenager Be? Exploring the Birth of the Teenager in British Newspaper Archive

‘Neither fish, fowl nor good red herring – that feeling of being betwixt and between.’ This is how hairdresser Mr Alexi describes the experience of being a teenager in a 1954 edition of The Tatler magazine. A teenage dance in Dorset | The Tatler | 6 February 1957 In 1954, the word ‘teenager’ was a relatively new addition to the lexicon. Although it first appeared prior to the Second World War, it only really caught on in common usage during the late 1940s. And by

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A Seaside Drama – The 1935 Murder of Francis Rattenbury

In March 1935 the seaside resort town of Bournemouth was shaken by a sensational murder. Retired architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury, aged 67, was found dead at his home, Villa Madeira, on Manor Road. Accused of his murder were his younger wife Alma Rattenbury, and her lover, 18-year-old gardener George Stoner. This case would end in further tragedy, and in this special blog, using pages from the British Newspaper Archive, we explore how murder came to the genteel town of Bournemouth

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Person or Persons Unknown – Five Unsolved Murders from UK History

Pages from the British Newspaper Archive abound with reports of crimes and their perpetrators, and some of the most intriguing of these are the UK’s unsolved murder cases, where a verdict of ‘murder by person or persons unknown’ has been reached. In this special blog, we explore five of the most notorious unsolved murders from UK history, ranging from the Thames mystery of the late 1880s, which came to be overshadowed by the Jack the Ripper killings, to the strange

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week we have added 66,564 new pages to The Archive, with two brand new titles joining us this week, as well as updates to seven of our existing titles. Our two new titles this week have a particularly Highland flavour. With this in mind, we are delighted to welcome the Huntly Express to our ever-growing collection of Scottish titles. The Huntly Express is a weekly newspaper covering local events, and initially started life as a Saturday publication. The town of Huntly was formerly known as Milton

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Ninette de Valois – Godmother of English and Irish Ballet

Prima ballerina, choreographer, teacher and business woman, Irish born Dame Ninette de Valois was instrumental in raising the global profile of British ballet, founding the company that would become the Royal Ballet, and nurturing the talent of some of the country’s most famous dancers, including Alicia Markova and Margot Fonteyn. In this special blog, we take a look at de Valois’ early years, her rise to prima ballerina, and her shift into production and choreography, using pages from the British

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The Tango Craze of 1913 – ‘London Has Already Been Bitten Severely’

‘They name their dresses Tango, their hats Tango, their dogs Tango,’ so reports the Pall Mall Gazette in 1913 at the height of tango fever in London and in Paris. In this special blog, using articles and illustrations from The Archive, we explore the history of the tango, and how its popularity surged after its spread from along the Rio de la Plata in South America to the music halls, the stately homes and the dance floors of Europe. Origins

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