Search the blog

An exciting feature of the new British Newspaper Archive will be the advanced search capabilities that are coming to the site.Searching historic newspapers has always been a balancing actSearching historic newspapers has always been a bit of a tightrope walk. Search too narrowly and you miss the articles you need. Cast the net too wide and you’re wading through pages of irrelevant results. Throw in inconsistent spelling, occasionally damaged print, and the inevitable quirks of Optical Character Recognition…

For the first week of March we are celebrating women throughout history who have been honoured with Academy Awards for their work as directors, actresses, and pioneers of the film industry. With the 98th year of the Academy Awards Ceremony approaching on March 15, 2026, it’s important to showcase some of the individuals who have prevailed against the male-dominated narrative of the event. As such, this blog will use pages from The Archive to highlight the marvellous achievements of women who have…

This week we are marking of the ninetieth anniversary of the release of the Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps, which came out on 6 June 1935. Meanwhile, we are celebrating the addition of eight brand new newspaper titles, the updating of twelve of our existing titles, as we have added 150,950 brand new pages to The Archive in all over the last seven days.So read on to discover more about the release of The 39 Steps and to learn more about our new…

This week at The Archive we are delighted to welcome two brand new newspaper titles, the Bicester Review and the Warwick Courier, to our collection, as we mark 35 years since the passing of legendary British actor Laurence Olivier on 11 July 1989. Meanwhile, we have added 320,851 brand new newspaper pages in all over the last seven days, whilst from Barnoldswick to Biggleswade, from Kirriemuir to Knaresborough, from Peterborough to Portadown, we’ve updated 21 of our existing titles from across the UK.So read…

This week we are stopping off in sunny Sussex to welcome brand new title the Shoreham Herald to our collection, alongside 111,501 brand new newspaper pages. Meanwhile, from all across the United Kingdom, from Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, we’ve updated ten of our existing titles.So read on to discover more about our new and updated titles of the week, and also to learn about the town of Shoreham’s ties to the early British film industry, when it was tipped…

This week at The Archive our presses having been working non-stop to bring you 201,657 brand new pages, as well as one brand new title, the Ripon Gazette. Meanwhile, from Ballymena to Blackpool, from Morpeth to Motherwell, from Shetland to Suffolk, we’ve updated 25 of our existing titles from across the United Kingdom.So read on to discover more about our new addition of the week, the Ripon Gazette, and also to learn which of our existing titles we have updated over…

We’re kicking off the New Year with a bang, as we welcome 56,730 brand new pages to The Archive, which include a cracker of a new title, the Coleraine Times. Meanwhile, from Bromley to Buxton, from Wharfedale to Worthing, we’ve updated eleven of our existing titles from across the United Kingdom and Ireland.So, as we wish our subscribers, friends and followers a very happy New Year, we also present to you our first new and updated titles of 2024. Meanwhile, we…

This week we have reached another milestone in our digitisation journey, as we have reached 73 million pages at The Archive, whilst we explore an early festive film, the Christmas Burglars. Not only have we added an early cinema title to our collection, we have also added a new title from England’s north-east, namely the Blyth News Post Leader, as we have added 127,786 brand new pages in all to our collection over the last seven days.This is our last weekly…

This week at The Archive we have added another 160,900 brand new pages to our collection, as we welcome new newspapers from Newtownabbey in Northern Ireland, alongside new titles from the Berkshire area. Meanwhile, from Bracknell to Belfast, from Somerset to Scotland, we’ve updated a range of our existing titles.So read on to discover more about our wonderful new and updated titles of the week. This week also marks 28 years since Irish actor Pierce Brosnan made his debut as James…

In December 1920 the world’s first illustrated weekly news magazine the Illustrated London News delved into the ‘curiosities and ingenuities‘ of the Patent Office, featuring some of Britain’s most unusual rejected patents.Illustrated by the publication’s own artist W.B. Robinson, the Illustrated London News presented a series of the bizarre designs that had been submitted to the Patent Office, but had since ‘lain dormant.’We at The Archive were keen to delve into our collection’s cabinet of curiosities, and these rejected…