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Christmas Parties Through The Ages

As Christmas is once more upon us, and the world slowly starts to go back to normal after several years of lockdowns, Christmas parties are again back in vogue. It got us wondering here at The Archive how the Christmas party has changed and developed over time. Naturally, we turned to our newspapers to discover more, learning how the key components of food, drink and music have always been part of historic Christmas celebrations. So in this special blog, we

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The 1920s Sea Shanty Trend

‘Sea shanties are having a great vogue right now,’ reports the Leeds Mercury in January 1927. The writer may well have been describing the sea shanty trend of the present day, as the haunting harmonies of traditional sea shanties once again have captured the popular imagination. And one hundred years ago, during the 1920s, sea shanties were also incredibly popular. You could listen to them on the radio, or on your gramophone, and they were even performed by MPs. Sailors turn the capstan

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Meet the Product Director of The British Newspaper Archive

Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at The British Newspaper Archive? We sat down with Product Director Ian Tester to find out who he is and what he does.   What does your job involve? I’m responsible for growing the business in all its myriad forms. My role covers marketing, building a better product, tweaking the pricing, choosing newspapers that we think will be of most interest and generally keeping everything running smoothly. Less excitingly, it also involves balancing

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Hector Berlioz – Born on 11 December 1803

Hector Berlioz was born at La Cote-Saint-Andre (near Grenoble) on 11 December 1803. A massive Shakespeare fan (and literature in general), England’s Bard was a major muse for Berlioz, and he composed several works based on Shakespeare’s plays. The Archive contains 100s of interesting stories about Berlioz, including reports about the five times when he lived and worked in England. So to celebrate the day, here is a very favourable newspaper review (published in The Manchester Courier in 1839) of

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