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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This week at The Archive we are delighted to be back publishing new titles, and we are even more excited to announce that we have now reached the landmark of over 37 million pages in our collection. In the past seven days we have added a total of 220,950 pages – with two very exciting new titles joining us (Reveille and Colonies and India), as well as extensive updates to three of our existing titles from England and Ireland. Register now and explore the …
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In 1870 Ernest ‘Stella’ Boulton and Frederick ‘Fanny’ Park were arrested, charged with ‘conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence.’ The case caused a sensation; for, when arrested, Boulton and Park were wearing women’s clothes. From Bow Street Station to the Van, April 10th, 1870 | The Days’ Doings | 20 May 1871 In this special blog, we take a look at this landmark trial and important chapter in LGBTQ history, and how it was reported at the time in …
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This week at The Archive we are going global, bringing you a prince’s 50,000 mile journey across the world, as well as highlighting one of our favourite newspapers, The Sphere. Read on to discover more about The Sphere, as well as the Prince of Wales’s world tour of 1920. Register now and explore the Archive Newspaper of the Week The Sphere, or The Sphere: An Illustrated Newspaper for the Home began in London, just as the twentieth century dawned. Published weekly, The Sphere abounded with illustrations …
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This week on The Archive we continue to bring you our top picks from our collection of specialist, national and regional newspapers. And in this vein, we turn our spotlight this week onto our very special suffragist newspapers, which chart how women across the British Isles and Ireland campaigned for the vote. Register now and explore the Archive Newspaper of The Week One of the most iconic of these titles is The Suffragette, later renamed Britannia. This newspaper was established in 1912, …
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This week we are continuing to bring you the best of what The Archive has to offer – and this week’s highlights have a particularly nautical flavour. For this week marks 200 years since HMS Beagle was launched, the famous ship upon which naturalist Charles Darwin travelled, and later wrote about, his experiences on the voyage helping to form his theory of evolution. Charles Darwin | Illustrated London News | 1 April 1982 Read on to discover how we used The Archive to retrace …
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Continuing our commemoration of the 75 years since VE-Day, in this special blog we explore the vital role that women played throughout the course of the Second World War. In 1939, for a second time in just over twenty years, Britain found itself embroiled in an international conflict, and women stepped forward to work in civil defence, armed forces, and industry. Unlike any other country, for the first time, British women were conscripted into service. On 18 December 1941, the …
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This week we are delighted to bring you some very special highlights from The Archive. We are diving into our immense collection to bring you our choice of ‘Newspaper of the Week,’ as well as uncovering headlines from the past. Register now and explore the Archive Newspaper of the Week This week’s pick for newspaper of the week is one of our more well known titles, namely the Illustrated London News. The Illustrated London News ran for over 160 years, and was one …
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This month marks the 75th anniversary of VE Day – the day that peace in Europe was finally declared. After nearly six years of conflict – how did the newspapers of the time report the momentous news? How did the people of Britain react? Gloucestershire Echo | 8 May 1945 Using the front pages from the 8 May 1945, VE Day itself, we take a step back in time to discover just how the joyous news spread, and how it was …
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We are always delighted here at the British Newspaper Archive to read all about your discoveries – whether relating to family history, sport, fashion – and to feature them here on our blog. Register now and explore The Archive This very special post comes from economic historians Joachim Voth and Bruno Caprettini, from the University of Zurich. In it, they describe how they used the British Newspaper Archive for their research into the relation between new agricultural technology and social …