Articles by The BNA

After watching Sainsbury’s Christmas advert, Kate Cole was inspired to research the real story behind WW1’s Christmas Truce. She used The British Newspaper Archive to unearth the experiences of soldiers on the Western Front in 1914.**************In December 1914, during first year of World War One, a remarkable event known as the Christmas Day Truce occurred in small pockets along the Western Front. 100 years later, one of Britain’s largest grocery shops has released a Christmas advert re-enacting the famous truce.With the

Today’s most-popular Christmas toys include Frozen dolls and tech gadgets, but it was a very different story 100 years ago. Newspapers from the time reveal there was a clear trend for ‘British-made’ military toys in the year that Britain joined World War One. Daily Mirror – Friday 04 December 1914Image © Trinity Mirror. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.View the whole newspaper pageThe ‘Great Miniature Battle’ of 1914, with trenches and barbed wireAn advert for Gamage’s department store appeared in

It’s hard to believe, but The British Newspaper Archive has now reached the grand old age of three. We launched on 29 November 2011 with 4 million fully searchable historic newspaper pages and have come a long way since then.Please click the image to enlarge itA treasure trove of informationYou can now search more than 9 million pages, from over 300 British and Irish newspaper titles, spanning 1710-1954. Reading all of those pages would be no mean feat – we’ve estimated that it would

While researching A Visitor’s Guide to Jane Austen’s England, author Sue Wilkes discovered an amazing romance which could have appeared in an Austen novel. We love hearing about what you’re finding in the newspapers. Tell us about your own discoveries in the comments section below. ************** Heiress Augusta Nicholson, a most intrepid young lady, showed great ingenuity when she fell in love with handsome John Giles, a penniless comedian.Miss Nicholson was a ward of chancery and would inherit £14,000 when she

You can search more than 390,000 newspaper pages from 1914-1918 at The British Newspaper Archive, with more being added all the time. Juliet Greenwood got in touch to explain how she used the collection to research World War One recipes for her novel, We That Are Left.**************When I first began writing a novel set during the First World War, I knew I wanted to focus on the experience of women and civilians.For Elin, the heroine of We That Are Left,

Every year on 5th November, people in Britain celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 with bonfires, effigies of Guy Fawkes and fireworks.You’ll find thousands of descriptions and images of Bonfire Night celebrations from the past in our collection of historical newspapers. We’ve selected some of our favourite examples for you to enjoy.1861: Burning the Guy on the fifth of NovemberPenny Illustrated Paper – Saturday 09 November 1861Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.View the whole newspaper

The British Newspaper Archive is full of grisly stories about the unusual and the unexplained. We’ve selected some of the oddest tales, including a description of a monster with the head of a sea lion and a rumour that Germany was turning dead soldiers into explosives during the First World War.Let us know if you’ve found a story to rival these. You can comment below or post on our Facebook page.1) 1877: A bizarre 70-foot beastA very strange creature

Simon Read is currently using The British Newspaper Archive to research Winston Churchill’s adventures as a war correspondent. He got in touch to show us some examples of Churchill’s journalism.**************Hear the name Winston Churchill, and what comes to mind? Most likely, it’s Churchill the war leader with his ever-present cigar, bulldog scowl, and never-surrender spirit. But long before Churchill’s Finest Hour, there was Winston Churchill the young adventurer.Between 1895 and 1900, Churchill covered wars of empire in Cuba, India’s North-West

Mary Berry uncovered some fascinating newspaper articles during her Who Do You Think You Are? episode, revealing shocking information about her ancestors Christopher Berry and Robert Houghton.Christopher Berry declared bankrupt in 1811On Saturday 14 November 1811, the Norfolk Chronicle printed the following announcement about Christopher Berry, Mary Berry’s great-great-great-grandfather.He was described as a ‘bookseller, printer, stationer, dealer and chapman’ who had been ‘declared a bankrupt’. Because of his bankruptcy, people indebted to him were advised not to pay Christopher Berry,

The first person to be arrested and charged for driving under the influence of alcohol was George Smith, a London cabdriver.Charged with drunk driving on 10 September 1897This article from the Morning Post reported that at about 00:45 on Friday 10 September 1897, Smith’s vehicle ‘swerved from one side of the road to the other, and ran across the footway into 165 New Bond Street’.George Smith admitted that he’d had ‘two or three glasses of beer’ and apologised, stating that ‘it is the