The British Newspaper Archive Blog - Part 40

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Hippies in Piccadilly – The Events of September 1969

In September 1969, 144 Piccadilly, a mansion in London’s fashionable West End, was taken over by a group of hippies who called themselves the London Street Commune. Over several days, the hippies barricaded themselves in the mansion, and resisted attempts to remove them, in what became known as the Battle of Piccadilly. Hippies occupy Endell Street School, Holborn | Illustrated London News | 4 October 1969 In this special blog, we look at how the newspapers of the time reported on this

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we have traversed the length and breadth of England in order to bring you new and updated titles from Somerset all the way to Northumberland. In all, we have added 75,198 brand new pages – with two exciting new titles joining us, namely the West Bridgford Advertiser and the Beds and Herts Pictorial. Register now and explore the Archive Published in Nottingham every Saturday, the West Bridgford Advertiser was the local newspaper of ‘South Nottingham, Sneiton, Basford, Hyson Green and Rushcliffe Division.’ Situated immediately south of

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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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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

Here at The Archive this week we have released 73,928 brand new pages – and we are delighted to welcome three brand new titles to our ever-expanding collection, covering three different countries and nearly a century of news. Register now and explore the Archive Our first new title this week is for the West Yorkshire town of Halifax. Described as a ‘reputable provincial newspaper,’ the Halifax Guardian began life in 1832 as the Halifax Guardian and Huddersfield and Bradford Advertiser. The preferred local newspaper of the Brontë

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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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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week on The Archive we have added 78,808 brand new pages – incorporating two very special new titles and spanning nearly 100 years of headlines. Register now and explore the Archive Meanwhile, we have added over 10,000 pages to Truth, the groundbreaking journal founded by man of many trades Henry Labouchère. Theatre owner, politician and writer, Labouchère was a divisive character who used the pages of Truth, amongst other things, to campaign against women’s suffrage. One of Truth‘s many claims to fame is that it featured in 1890 an article

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William Palmer the Rugeley Poisoner – A Very Victorian Morality Tale

‘No more thrilling a tale of guilt and crime, and scarcely one so eloquent in its lessons and cautions to those who are in danger of entering upon a life of unbridled passion, is to be found in all the history of poor humanity than this story of William Palmer.’ So reads an article in the Sheffield Independent, 17 September 1888, regarding one William Palmer, better known as the Rugeley Poisoner. William Palmer, a former doctor, was convicted in 1856 for the murder

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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week we have added 114,456 brand new pages to The Archive. We are delighted to welcome one brand new title from Cheshire – the Crewe Chronicle – which spans nearly 100 years of history with pages running from 1874 to 1972. Our existing titles have not been neglected either; from London (Harrow Observer, Kensington Post) to Newcastle (Newcastle Journal, Newcastle Evening Chronicle) from Torbay (Torbay Express and South Devon Echo) to Huddersfield (Huddersfield Daily Examiner), from Scarborough (Scarborough Gazette) to Leicester (Leicester Daily Mercury), you’re sure to

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Tragedy in the West End – A High Society Murder

In 1919 the country was shocked by a high society murder – dubbed the ‘West End Tragedy.’ Major Miles Seton, of the Australian Medical Corps, was shot and killed by Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Rutherford, a British army doctor, in the palatial surrounds of a Holland Park address. Using articles and photographs from the pages of the British Newspaper Archive, we explore this sad crime, which took place just a few months after the end of the First World War. Want to learn

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Mary Ann Cotton and Arsenic Poisoning in the Victorian Era

40-year-old Mary Ann Cotton was arrested in West Auckland, County Durham, in 1872 after her stepson, Charles Edward Cotton, was found to have been poisoned by arsenic. During the nineteenth century, arsenic was readily available and could be bought, unregulated, from most grocers. In this special blog, using pages from the British Newspaper Archive, we explore the crimes of Mary Ann Cotton, and how arsenic played a deadly role in everyday life.   Want to learn more? Register now and

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