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The Porthole Mystery – The Murder of Gay Gibson (Part Two)

In October 1947, actress Eileen Isabella Ronnie Gibson, also known as Gay Gibson, disappeared from the ship upon which she was travelling home from South Africa. Her disappearance, which later led to a murder trial, hit headlines across the globe, as the sensational case mirrored plots akin to those to be found in books authored by Agatha Christie. In the first part of this special blog series, which you can read here, we took a look at who Gay Gibson

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The Porthole Mystery – The Murder of Gay Gibson (Part One)

The murder of 21-year-old actress Eileen Isabella Ronnie Gibson, who went by the name stage name of Gay Gibson, whilst she was travelling home from South Africa aboard the Durban Castle, in October 1947, made headlines across Britain and the world. Also known as the ‘Porthole Murder,’ thanks to the method in which Gay’s body was disposed, the case gained notoriety due to its parallels with film noir and popular fiction penned by Agatha Christie. In part one of a

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we are delighted to welcome one splendid brand new title to our collection – Toby – the ‘East London Watch-Dog‘ – which provides us with a fascinating insight into attitudes to the police in Whitechapel at the time of Jack the Ripper. That’s not all, over the last seven days we’ve added 89,020 brand new newspaper pages, whilst we’ve made important updates to our newspaper titles from across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. So read

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

We’ve reached the extraordinary landmark of 72 million pages all now available to search on The Archive, as we welcome new title the Carrick Times and East Antrim Times to our collection, and celebrate the town of Carrickfergus’s links with poet and playwright Louis MacNeice. That’s not all, we’ve added 152,092 brand new pages to The Archive in all over the last seven days, with new pages joining publications from across Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. So read on to

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we are delighted to present a Northern Irish newspapers special, as we have updated a trio of our titles from Northern Ireland. We have also added 106,898 brand new pages over the last week alone, whilst we have added one brand new title from London. So read on to discover more about all of our new and updated titles of the week, and also to learn about the first ever Borstal, which was opened in

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Unlock the Story of the Cleveland Street Scandal

1889 was the year of the Cleveland Street scandal, in which a male brothel was raided in Cleveland Street, in London’s West End. At the time, sexual acts between men were illegal in Britain, and those who visited the house of assignation on Cleveland Street faced prosecution. However, due to the high social standing of many of the clientele of 19 Cleveland Street, only a few men faced prison time, as the British government were accused of covering up the

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Guest Blog: Researching Queer History by Rebecca Morris-Quinn

At The Archive we are delighted to welcome guest blogs from our users, which highlight a wealth of different research interests. This month, we are excited to feature a blog on researching queer history by Staffordshire researcher Rebecca Morris-Quinn. My name is Rebecca, I am a queer woman living in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. I’ve been interested in genealogy and history for many years, since I found out that I share a birthday with a great-great aunt, Olive (albeit over 100 years

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The Theft of The Mona Lisa As Told Through Our Newspapers

The theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 is one of the art world’s most sensational crimes. The Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece was taken, almost in plain sight, from its place in the Louvre, Paris, with very few clues as to the identity of its thief left behind. In this special blog, we will tell the story of the theft of the Mona Lisa through our newspapers, as the crime filled newspaper columns across the world. We will draw on

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week we return from a publishing hiatus having added a mammoth 1,610,356 brand new pages to our Archive, and it’s an especially great week for Grimsby too, as we’ve added one brand new title for the Lincolnshire town, and also extensively updated the Grimsby Daily Telegraph. All of these additions mean we have now surpassed a landmark 65 million pages on The Archive. This week also sees the addition of a further three new titles to our collection, from

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we have been busy adding a staggering 706,009 brand new newspaper pages, including the addition of best-selling Scottish newspaper Thomson’s Weekly News and some specialist sporting titles. We’ve added eleven brand new titles to our collection in all this week, with new titles joining us from Cork, Cumbria and Camden. Meanwhile, from Accrington to Aldershot, from Dorking to Dorset, from Ealing to East Kilbride, we’ve updated 82 of our existing titles from across the United

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