Articles by Rose Staveley-Wadham

In this special blog we use the remarkable photographs and illustrations contained in our Newspaper Archive to trace the tradition of the May Queen over one hundred and fifty years, as well as exploring the origins of this fascinating ritual.We start out at Wymering, just outside of Portsmouth, in 1867. It was here, in the ‘latter part of the month of merrie May’, that a May Queen was crowned. The Illustrated Times tell us that the event is looked forward

On the first day of January 1753 maidservant Elizabeth Canning disappeared. She returned to her mother’s house some twenty-eight days later, emaciated and bedraggled, claiming that she had been held in a room against her will. As the case went to court, and her captors were arrested, many came to disbelieve Elizabeth Canning’s tale, resulting in Canning herself going on trial for perjury.In 1754 the Manchester Mercury comments on the question of whether ‘Elizabeth Canning is or is not an Imposter,’

The discovery of skeletal remains in a wych elm tree during the April of 1943 remains one of the most compelling mysteries of British crime history. Who was the woman whose remains were found in the wych elm tree? Who was responsible for the perplexing graffiti which began to appear a year after the discovery? Was espionage or witchcraft involved? Using pages from the Archive, we dive into this fascinating story, which, as the Sunday Mirror comments in 1944, is ‘as fantastic

This week we have added 126,386 new pages to The Archive. We have added four brand new titles this week, with the addition of Kent title the Thanet Times, London title the Harrow Leader, and Middlesex title the Staines & Ashford News. This week also sees the publication of a curious title from 1811, the Anti-Gallican Monitor, which was published during the the Napoleonic wars.We have also updated two of our existing titles: adding over 60,000 pages to the Reading Evening Post, with

Held in 1974 at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Destruction of the Country House exhibition highlighted how stately homes across the British Isles had been demolished throughout the course of the twentieth century, in what some called a ‘cultural tragedy.’ In this special blog, we will explore how the British Newspaper Archive can shed more light upon this curious phenomenon, which saw approximately one country house being demolished every five days in 1955.Illustrated London News | 1 November 1974Searching the terms ‘country house

This week we have added 110,830 new pages to The Archive. We are delighted to welcome two specialist titles, Justice – ‘the oldest socialist journal in the British Islands,’ and the Tablet, a Roman Catholic newspaper. We also have one further brand new addition, the Portadown News from County Armagh in Northern Ireland.We have also updated two of our existing titles, the West Middlesex Gazette and the Staffordshire Sentinel. This week we have added the years 1930 to 1938 to the Staffordshire Sentinel,

On the 6 February 1952 the world was stunned by the news of the death of King George VI. His 25 year-old daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, succeeded him. In this special blog post we take a look at how the news was broken on that day 70 years ago, and how it impacted the country and indeed the rest of the world.Coventry Evening Telegraph | 6 February 1952The Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail reported the King’s passing in the following terms:King George the Sixth is

It was the winter of 1813-1814. Napoleon retreated from Moscow, and the Thames froze over between London Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge from 27th December 1813 to 5th February 1814. And onto the frozen surface of the river arrived the ‘Frost Fair,’ an event that continued a centuries old tradition, and proved to be the last of its type.Using the Archive, it is possible to discover some fascinating contemporary accounts of this last Frost Fair, and also, by searching newspapers of a later

Despite it not quite being a full week since our last update, we are happy to announce the addition of 119,672 new pages to The Archive. After a bumper Christmas crop of new pages, we have updates to two of our existing titles, Wexford publication the New Ross Standard, and Reach plc (Trinity Mirror) title the Cheshire Observer. Both updates cover the twentieth century, whilst the New Ross Standard extends into the twenty-first century, with pages spanning the years between 1911 and 2005.

This week we have added 118,516 new pages to The Archive. We have added one new title, the New Ross Standard, published in County Wexford, and we have additions to five of our existing titles, including one of the oldest continuously published periodicals in the world, Lloyd’s List, and late twentieth century additions to the Lichfield Mercury.With the help of our recently added titles, we take a look this week at the interrelation between newspapers and the Second Boer War (1899-1902).