Denise Bates, historian and author of Breach of Promise to Marry: A History of How Jilted Brides Settled Scores, explains why local newspapers are often more useful for historical research than national newspapers. ************** Breach of promise was a legal claim. It allowed a man or woman to demand financial compensation from their ex-fiancée or ex-fiancé if they broke their engagement to marry. Newspapers are the best source of information about breach of promise cases, but there is …
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Gordon Martin recently got in touch to show us what the newspapers have helped him find out about his great-great-uncle Charles Alfred Martin. We love hearing about your finds, so please do let us know what you’ve discovered by emailing press@britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk ************** Charles Alfred Martin I had long known the existence of great-great-uncle Charles, the youngest child of a seaman born in Magdeburg, Prussia who served on HMS Achille at the Battle of Trafalgar of 1805. His father had arrived …
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The Huddersfield Chronicle reported that John Hetherington wore the first top hat on this day in 1797. The article stated that he was arrested for breach of the peace after ‘several women fainted at the unusual sight’: View the whole newspaper page Huddersfield Chronicle – Tuesday 24 January 1899 Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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‘Tell all France that I am innocent’ – Alfred Dreyfus In Paris on 5 January 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was stripped of his army rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on ‘Devil’s Island’. Here is a newspaper story published on 7 January 1895 entitled, ‘The Degradation of Dreyfus’, that reports on the utterly humiliating ceremony at the Ecole Militaire to strip Dreyfus of his rank and dignity. The words that Dreyfus shouts immediately after the degradation ceremony are very poignant, …
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On this day in 1911, somebody stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in Paris. It was a very famous theft, and even people like Pablo Picasso and the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire were pulled in for questioning by the police. It was only two years later that the truth emerged – the painting had been stolen by a Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia – he was sentenced to six months in jail for the crime. The story we’ve posted …