The British Newspaper Archive is an unrivalled resource when it comes to tracing local history. Where else would you find millions of forgotten stories from your street, town or city all documented and ready to be discovered? Take Birmingham for example. The Archive contains over 50,000 pages and and a varied range of titles from the UK’s ‘Second City’ and this guide will show you how to make the most of them. Register now and view Birmingham newspapers for FREE You can …
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In honour of Remembrance Day, during the month of November, The British Newspaper Archive will be focusing our attention on military in the newspapers. Coming up this month we will feature blogs about our special military titles, researching military history, women and war, and wartime rationing and fashion, as well as a guest blog about a remarkable Great War discovery from The Archive. To begin our military month, we are delving into the newspaper headlines through the years for the …
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History was once dominated by ‘great men’ and ‘great battles’. Today we can tell a far more nuanced story about the impact of warfare on nations and communities. Newspapers can help to tell that story. The papers in The Archive stretch back to the early 1700s and into the 2000s and can be used to research many famous, and forgotten, conflicts. Throughout November we will explore a variety of topics related to the history of conflict and the military services. The …
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As we explored in our other blog post, military topics and history can be found in every newspaper in The Archive. We also hold a range of specialist military titles. These titles fall into three broad categories: newspapers aimed at the volunteer and military services, newspapers from towns which had large military or naval bases, and newspapers published during the course of a conflict. Click on each paper’s title to be brought to its Title Page in the table below. …
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While we overwhelmingly mark 31 October as simply the celebration of Halloween, we wanted to highlight some other events that have occurred on this day over the years. On this day One event that had an overwhelming and lasting impact took place on this day in 1517: Martin Luther posted on the door of Castle Church, Wittenberg, his 95 Theses. The ever-expanding United States admitted its 36th state on 31 October 1864: Nevada. One of the earliest transcontinental highways in …
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Halloween in communities How Halloween is viewed varies from place to place and its traditions are just as diverse. A sense of how Halloween is treated in a given place can be glimpsed in its portrayal in cinema, music, and literature. Treat yourself to a poem written on the topic by John Mayn, printed in 1805 in The Scots Magazine. A notice in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News mentioned a Halloween tradition practised in ‘olden times’ in Scotland. Another Halloween tradition we …
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Of witches and witchcraft As we kick off our Halloween celebrations and delve into the history, contained within the newspapers, of witches and witchcraft (and supernatural beings), it is imperative that we preface this — perhaps unnecessarily — with an important disclaimer and reminder: witches, in the sense of practitioners of malevolent powers to do evil works, never existed. Those persecuted during the sixteenth century and onward were, more often than not, local healers and midwives. In 1562, Queen Elizabeth …
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With Halloween approaching, we wanted to see what we could find related to the topic of hauntings in The British Newspaper Archive. Of children and hauntings Often the origins of a haunting myth are rooted in death and loss. Sometimes the myth grows and morphs to such a point where its origin is indeterminate. Other times, the sad truth of its origin is unexpectedly revealed, as with the ‘grim discovery’ at a ‘haunted house’ in 1921, reported in The Scotsman. …
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This past week we added 121,544 pages to the Archive. We have 4 brand new titles, and added new years to twenty-seven existing titles. Our new titles are for Lincolnshire, Somerset and Herefordshire in England, and Rhyl in Wales. The Bridgwater Mercury, also known as The West Counties Herald was published in Somerset, England. The Ross Gazette was published in Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, and we have years ranging from the late 1860s to the early twentieth century. County borders in …
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The British Newspaper Archive is proud to feature a guest blog by author Naomi Clifford. In 2016, Naomi Clifford wrote The Disappearance of Maria Glenn, a story of crime and coercion about the abduction of a sugar plantation heiress. This year, Clifford is back with a new book, Women and the Gallows 1797-1837: Unfortunate Wretches. Her research into the 131 women hanged in England and Wales involved extensive research in the British Newspaper Archive. Eliza Ross is just one name featured in the new book to be published …