Articles by Rose Staveley-Wadham

During the Second World War the government requisitioned country houses across the United Kingdom for the war effort. No house was exempt, with the grandest stately homes re-purposed to house everything from schools to maternity homes, from military hospitals to war supply depots.Using photographs and contemporary articles found in the British Newspaper Archive, we will look at the myriad of purposes for which stately homes were used during the six year conflict.Many houses were taken over to be

Over eighty years since the first children were evacuated from cities across Britain, and as part of our history of childhood month here at The Archive, in this special blog we will take a look at how country houses were requisitioned by schools and their evacuated children.Want to learn more? Register now and explore the ArchiveThe grandest of stately homes were not exempt from requisition, with some of the country’s largest and most famous houses, including Blenheim Palace,

The bathing machine, once a familiar sight at British seaside resorts, has all but become extinct, its legacy only really reflected in the beach huts which still line coasts up and down the United Kingdom.In this special blog we take a look at some of the wonderful photographs and illustrations of bathing machines that can be found using the British Newspaper Archive.The Bystander | 7 August 1912There is some conjecture as to where the bathing machine originated – some say it

This week we have added 94,482 new pages to The Archive, covering 123 years of history across the British Isles and Ireland. We have updated seven of our existing titles, with significant updates to Newcastle publication the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, to which we have added over 60,000 pages spanning the years 1870-1914.We also have significant updates to society publication The Queen, as we continue to augment our early twentieth-century holdings for this newspaper. We have added pages to regional titles covering the North

By 1939 there were an estimated three to four hundred holiday camps established across the United Kingdom, with the smallest housing fifty beds, and the largest with six thousand or more. What was behind the surge in popularity? We explore the holiday camp phenomenon by delving into the pages of the British Newspaper Archive, using the myriad of advertisements, photographs and articles located there to discover more about this mainstay of the British seaside resort.In 1936 William ‘Billy’ Butlin founded his

‘What Pompeii was to the Romans…Brighton is to Londoners,’ comments an article on the famous British seaside town in the Penny Illustrated Paper, 10 August 1889. Using articles, photographs and illustrations from The Archive, in this special blog we will take a look at the history of this ‘Queen of Watering-places,’ from its establishment as a health resort in the eighteenth century, its growth as a fashionable destination thanks to the Prince Regent, to its railway heyday, and its infamous twentieth century

Performing a search for cricket in our oldest British Newspaper Archive publications (the Archive’s earliest pages run from 1699) it is possible to discover the fascinating history of the enduringly popular sport. In this special blog we will look at cricket’s early association with royalty, its emergence as a gambling sport, and its inevitable explosion in popularity.Kentish Gazette | 23 June 1773An early and passionate advocate for the sport was Prince Frederick of Wales, father of George III, who was popularly thought

This week we have added 102,572 new pages to The Archive, and we continue to add brand new and exciting titles to our collection.This week sees the addition of new title The Queen to The Archive. The Queen, or to give it its full title, The Queen, The Ladies’ Newspaper and Court Chronicle was established as a society magazine by Samuel Beeton in 1861, and followed the goings-on of high society and the British aristocracy. We currently have the years 1887 to 1896

The first recorded mention of women’s cricket was in 1745, in Surrey. We searched our Archive for early mentions of women’s cricket, and we came across a treasure trove of articles describing the early history of the sport.Harrow versus Pinner | Graphic | 18 August 1888One of these comes from the Sherborne Mercury, published in August 1849. It describes a match between ‘nine married ladies’ and ‘nine single ladies’ played at Picket Post, in the New Forest. The single ladies were defeated by one

This week we have added 116,100 new pages to The Archive, and we are delighted to welcome five very special new newspapers to our collection. Three of these newspapers are early socialist publications, which trace the origins of the Labour party movement, including the election of the first Labour government in 1924 and beyond. These titles are Forward (Glasgow), the Labour Leader and Clarion. Later on in the blog we will take an in depth look at these titles, which are a