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When the Blitz began on 7 September 1940, ‘It was the people of London who took command…Men, women, and children went straight to the safest place they could think of – the Underground stations.’In this special blog, over 80 years after the beginning of the Blitz, we take a look at how London’s main transport system – the Underground –  became a popular place of shelter for those seeking protection from the German bombing campaign, using an assortment of articles and photographs all to be…

The British Newspaper Archive holds over 70,000 pages from Liverpool newspapers (and counting), making it an unrivalled resource when it comes to tracing the history of the city and its surrounding areas.Register to View Liverpool NewspapersOur clever search tools allow you to focus your search by looking at papers from Liverpool only and offer the ability to narrow by date, recent additions and more.To focus in on Liverpool titles only, while searching, use the place filter to select…

The British Newspaper Archive is an unrivalled resource when it comes to tracing local history. Where else would you find millions of forgotten stories from your street, town or city all documented and ready to be discovered? Take Birmingham for example. The Archive contains over 50,000 pages and and a varied range of titles from the UK’s ‘Second City’ and this guide will show you how to make the most of them.Register now and view Birmingham newspapers for FREEYou…

In honour of Remembrance Day, during the month of November, The British Newspaper Archive will be focusing our attention on military in the newspapers.  Coming up this month we will feature blogs about our special military titles, researching military history, women and war, and wartime rationing and fashion, as well as a guest blog about a remarkable Great War discovery from The Archive.  To begin our military month, we are delving into the newspaper headlines through the years for the…

Hopefully, you were able to join us live for our local history webinar, presented by Michala Hulme. However, if you weren’t able to catch it live or want a refresher, watch it on our YouTube channel here!In reviewing the lively and engaging Q&A that took place during the webinar, we’ve pulled out a few questions that we wanted to highlight and expand upon.Search tip 1Can The British Newspaper Archive distinguish between buildings, ships, towns, and surnames? Every time…

London is steeped in rich history. Every borough, street and building in the UK’s capital city has a past and the British Newspaper Archive is one of the best resources available for unlocking the stories behind them. No matter what part of London you’re interested in researching, you’ll find newspapers covering every locality, with contemporary reports from some of the most pivotal eras in British history.Register now and view London newspapers for FREEOne of the quickest ways to…

Ruth Small studied History at Newcastle University and recently got in touch to tell us all about her dissertation. She used The British Newspaper Archive in her research and was awarded a first-class mark, with some amazing comments about the originality of her work. ************** I wrote my History dissertation about the great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead, which occurred on 6 October 1854. It was a fire which led to an explosion in a warehouse of a magnitude that no one had…

We’ve recently donated 100 subscriptions to the Wikipedia community through the Wikipedia Library, a grant-funded programme which makes it easier for experienced volunteer editors to access research materials.It’s very exciting to be involved in this new partnership. It allows us to contribute to Wikipedia, one of the most frequently used reference tools in the world, and demonstrates how local British and Irish newspapers can help improve public information about historical topics from around the world.We asked Simon Tushingham, one…