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Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we have been topping up our tabloid titles, with extensive updates to newspapers like the Daily Record and The People over the last seven days. Moreover, we have added 246,756 brand new pages to our collection over the past week, with new pages joining our newspapers from Accrington to Airdrie, from Retford to Rutherglen, from South Wales to Southall. So read on to discover which of our 55 existing titles we have updated, and also

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Guest Blog Post: ‘The Dark Side of Railway Work’ by Dr Mike Esbester

As part of our railway history month on The Archive, we’re delighted to welcome a very special guest blog post from Dr Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth and co-lead of the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death Project.’ In this special blog, Mike takes a look at the dark side of railway work, and how the British Newspaper Archive has helped to inform research into railway accidents from days past. The Dark Side of Railway

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Seven Unusual or Lost Occupations From History

With the release of the 1921 Census of England and Wales on our sister site Findmypast last week, we were delighted to discover a range of unusual occupations returned within its pages, from knocker-ups to lamplighters, from rag and bone men to rat catchers. And so, using our newspapers, we thought we’d shine a light on some of the past’s most unusual or indeed lost occupations, and try to understand what it was like to actually be a crossing sweeper,

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‘The Girls Behind the Counter’ – The Daily Life of a Victorian Shop Girl

In November 1846, the ‘Friends of a respectable young Woman’ placed this advertisement in the ‘Wants‘ column of Saunders’s News-Letter: The Friends of a respectable young Woman wish to procure for her a Situation either as Attendant on a Lady or in a Nursery, or as a Shop Girl; she is adequate to any of the above capacities, and is willing to make herself generally useful, being of an humble, quiet and obliging disposition; she is a good needleworker, and can teach

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‘A Heavy Premium on Childhood’ – Exploring Attitudes Towards Factory Half-Timers

In October 1823, the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser asserted: The charge and duty of Government are not merely to increase the numbers of men, but to promote and increase their happiness. Industry is the most powerful engine of this happiness, because it is the spring of all their riches. Government, then, should encourage labour, and by due reward, endeavour to avail of, and augment its useful products… The article, entitled ‘Political Economy,’ goes on to recommend how ‘the power of labour

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