Hot Off The Press – New Titles This Week

This week at The Archive we’re excited to welcome five brand new titles to our collection, and we’re especially delighted to welcome one of the longest running Free Church newspapers to our holdings, namely the Baptist Times. Meanwhile, we’ve added 125,635 brand new pages to The Archive in all over the past seven days, with updates to eleven of our existing titles, including to the world’s oldest English language general daily newspaper still in circulation, the Belfast News-Letter.

So read on to discover more about all of our new and updated titles of the week, and also to discover more about the ennui which followed both VE and VJ Days, as told through the pages of the Baptist Times.

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The Baptist Times

Let’s begin, then, by taking a look at our new titles of the week, and we start with the Baptist Times. Published by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Baptist Times was one of the longest running Free Church weekly newspapers, being the main newspaper for the Baptist denomination throughout the 20th century.

The Baptist Times, however, has older roots than that. The publication grew out of The Freeman, which was founded on 24 January 1855. On 24 February 1899 the title became known as the Baptist Times and Freeman, with the motto of ‘He is the freeman whom makes the truth free.’

Baptist Times | 3 August 1906

‘The official organ of the Baptist denomination,’ the Baptist Times represented the news and views from a Baptist perspective. A denomination within Protestant Christianity, Baptist churches are distinguished by their belief in only baptising professing Christian believers, in a ceremony known as believers’ baptism, which is often undertaken via full immersion.

So what did the pages of the Baptist Times feature? Well, the Baptist Times printed an array of sermons, some written for the paper, others recorded from sermons that had actually been preached. Meanwhile the newspaper featured an array of Baptist news, from ‘Denominational Intelligence,’ to news from Baptist missions across the world.

Baptist Times | 2 September 1943

Filling some twenty pages, and costing just one penny in the early twentieth century, the Baptist Times also printed answers to correspondents, a column entitled ‘From the Woman’s Standpoint,’ as well as Baptist related fictional stories. The title also featured photographs of prominent Baptists, such as those who were candidates at the 1906 General Election.

On 10 September 1925 the Baptist Times and Freeman officially shortened its title to the Baptist Times. Prior to this, the publication had incorporated rival denominational title The Baptist.

In November 2011 the Baptist Times ceased print publication. However, the newspaper still runs to this day, only in an online format. We are delighted to publish these pages thanks to our partnership with the Baptist Union of Great Britain, and the Angus Library and Archive at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, which houses a leading collection of Baptist material, as well as original copies of the Baptist Times.

The Derby and Chesterfield Reporter and The Falmouth News Slip

We move to our next new title of the week now, which is the Derby and Chesterfield Reporter. Established over 200 years ago in 1823, this title circulated ‘through the whole county of Derby, and in the adjacent parts of North Staffordshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire.’ Liberal in its politics, the Derby and Chesterfield Reporter appeared every week, first on a Thursday, and then on a Friday.

Derby and Chesterfield Reporter | 3 March 1831

Costing just one pence, the eight pages of the Derby and Chesterfield Reporter focussed on a range of foreign and domestic news, as well as more local news from the likes of the Derbyshire Sessions. Moreover, the paper had a broad outlook, reporting on the latest developments in fashion, the markets and agriculture, as well as printing notices of births, marriages and deaths.

Featuring ‘the local information of the district,’ our next new title of the week is the Falmouth News Slip. Established in the Cornish seaside town of Falmouth in 1880, this independent Saturday newspaper cost only one halfpenny. Its four pages were filled with brief updates from the area, with news of local accidents and deaths, the latest from the Plymouth Board of Guardians, notices of public religious services, and some more general news items.

Falmouth News Slip | 5 March 1881

The Isle of Axholme News & Thorne Advertiser and the Halifax and District Labour News

Our final duo of newspapers both hail from Yorkshire, and they are the Isle of Axholme & Thorne Advertiser, and the Halifax and District Labour News. The former title, the Isle of Axholme & Thorne Advertiser, was established in the market town of Thorne in West Yorkshire in 1871, with the full title of the Isle of Axholme & Thorne Advertiser; Goole and Marshland Weekly Times, Selby Express, and Howdenshire Gazette.

Isle of Axholme & Thorne Advertiser | 16 March 1877

Appearing every Friday at the cost of one penny, this politically independent newspaper focussed mainly on local news, having ‘an extensive circulation in Thorne, Crowle, and throughout the surrounding districts.’ For example, the Isle of Axholme and Thorne Advertiser reported on the latest from the East Riding Quarter Sessions, the Wakefield Corn Market, the Escrick Petty Sessions, the Goole police, the Howden Petty Sessions and the Selby Petty Sessions.

In 1879 the paper became known simply as the Thorne Advertiser.

Meanwhile, the Halifax and District Labour News was a short-lived title, published in the West Yorkshire town of Halifax in the early twentieth century. A ‘weekly journal of the trades, friendly, co-operative, and socialist organizations of Halifax, Elland, and Sowerby Parliamentary divisions,’ this newspaper appeared every Saturday at the cost of one penny.

Halifax and District Labour News | 29 May 1909

The eight pages of the Halifax and District Labour News were largely filled with news from a range of trades and other local organisations, as well as reports on a variety of labour issues, with articles, for example, like ‘Socialism and Democracy.’ The paper, meanwhile, had an entertaining edge, as it printed serialised fiction, football news, and articles on home and fashion.

The Halifax and District Labour News came to a sad end on 13 November 1909.

Our Updated Titles

We have a wonderful array of new pages that we have added to our existing titles this week, and leading the charge are the new years that we have added to the Belfast News-Letter, which span all the way from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth century.

The addition of these new pages, which run from 1738 to 1961, has been made possible thanks to the partnership between the Northern Ireland Office, the British Library, and the British Newspaper Archive’s sister site, Findmypast. You can read more about the project here.

Belfast News-Letter | 3 October 1738

This week we’ve also updated a trio of our other Northern Irish titles, namely the Belfast Telegraph, the Belfast Weekly News and Newry Telegraph. Heading across the Irish Sea, our other notable updates this week are to the Illustrated Berwick Telegraph and to the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald.

‘That Victory Parade’ – 8 June 1946

During May here at The Archive we have been taking a look at VE Day as it happened, through an array of contemporary headlines. A question that was prominent in our minds as we did so, is what happened after the party? Pages published this week from the Baptist Times provide us with a fascinating insight into attitudes towards both VE Day and VJ Day in the months after victory was secured, and particularly in the run up to the Victory Parade, which was due to take place on 8 June 1946.

The London Victory Parade | The Sphere | 15 June 1946

On 21 March 1946 the Baptist Times, in a column entitled ‘Men and Matters,‘ which took a look at current events, the writer expressed their feelings on ‘That Victory Parade:’

The Government, one may hope, will pay heed to the public feeling which is growingly finding expression that the proposed Victory Parade fixed for June 8 ought to be abandoned – or at least postponed.

But why did the writer feel that the Victory Parade should be cancelled, or reorganised? The Baptist Times paragraph continues:

Events in the last few weeks – the worldwide food famine, the new call for austere living until our economic recovery is in sight, and above all, the dangerous international situation – combine to make the proposed jollification over military victory ill-timed and undignified.

Tanks practice for the Victory Parade | The Sphere | 8 June 1946

Understandably, the combination of austere living conditions at home, famines abroad, particularly in Soviet Russia, and the looming threat of the Cold War, did not lend itself to celebrations. And the writer at the Baptist Times was not alone in these thoughts, as they penned:

On one day last week The Times published two strong letters of protest: ‘Our enemies,’ wrote one correspondent, ‘have been defeated in battle, but there is so much to be done before we can afford the extra relaxation which is the rightful corollary to victory.’ The other correspondent was even more emphatic. ‘To hold a parade now to celebrate the first phase of victory,’ he wrote, ‘ would be an appalling blunder – economically and morally.’

King George VI takes the salute at the Victory Parade | The Sphere | 15 June 1946

Despite this qualms, as outlined by the Baptist Times, the London Victory Celebrations took place in 1946, at the centre of which was the Victory Parade. Alongside British and British Empire forces, many of Britain’s allies took part in the parade. These nations included representatives from Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nepal, the Netherlands, Norway, Transjordan and the United States. The only allied countries, significantly given the international situation, not to take part were Poland, Soviet Russia and Yugoslavia.

Discover more about the Victory Parade and attitudes to London Victory Celebrations here.

New Titles

Updated Titles

This week we have updated eleven of our existing titles.

You can learn more about each of the titles we add to every week by clicking on their names. On each paper’s title page, you can read a free sample issue, learn more about our current holdings, and our plans for digitisation.

You can keep up to date with all the latest additions by visiting the recently added page.  You can even look ahead to see what we’re going to add tomorrow.