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Discovering Shakespeare’s London on the British Newspaper Archive

As Britannia & Eve relates, ‘In 1586 a young genius of twenty-two, already the father of twins, packed his bags, said good-bye to the fading charms of his older wife, and quitted his home in Stratford-upon-Avon to earn his living in London as an actor.’ This young genius was of course none other than William Shakespeare, about whose life precious little is known. But we do know that it was to London that the bard went, Dick Whittington-like, to pursue

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Shakespeare on the Tube Strike

Search The British Newspaper Archive for the words ‘Tube strike’ and you’ll find hundreds of stories about London Underground strikes of the past. While most newspapers printed serious reports, we’ve found a few that couldn’t resist making a joke or two.   Tu-be or not tu-be The Derby Daily Telegraph imagined how William Shakespeare would have responded to the Tube strike of 1919:   Derby Daily Telegraph – Wednesday 05 February 1919 Image © Local World Limited. Image created courtesy of

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Wartime St George’s Day advert

St George’s Day and the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth both fall on 23 April.   ‘There will be justice and victory’ This patriotic advert from Ford was published in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer to mark the day during World War Two. It states that ‘wherever the tongue of Shakespeare is spoken, there will be justice and victory’.     View the whole newspaper page The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer – Thursday 22 April 1943 Image © Johnston

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The Man who Demolished Shakespeare’s House – Reverend Francis Gastrell

Shakespeare's house

Newspaper report from 1858 about Reverend Francis Gastrell being sent into exile by the good folk of Stratford-upon-Avon As our curiosity was aroused by this BBC news article about Reverend Francis Gastrell demolishing Shakespeare’s house in 1759, we thought we’d do a quick search for this tale in the Archive. Our search was fruitful, as we found this newspaper report (published in 1858) that describes how Gastrell’s ‘cultural vandalism’ resulted in him being ‘sent to Coventry’ by the good folk

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