Search the blog

This Christmas week at The Archive we are investigating a Christmas crime, as we welcome three brand new titles and 200,800 pages to our collection in all. The Christmas treats don’t stop there, however, with updates to six of our existing titles from the UK and Ireland.So read on to discover more about the Christmas crime which caused a stir in the Deptford community in December 1869, and also to learn about our new and updated titles of the week.Register…

With the addition of brand new title the Transport Worker, alongside three other brand new newspapers, this week at The Archive we are looking back at the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike. Meanwhile, we are excited to celebrate reaching a landmark 98 million pages, as we get ever closer to that 100 million pages milestone.That’s not all, in total we’ve added 203,148 brand new pages to our collection, with updates to eight of our existing titles. So read on to discover more about…

This week at The Archive we are celebrating the beginning of Advent and the approach of Christmas with the addition of a trio of brand new titles, and 200,872 brand new pages in all. Meanwhile, we have a bonanza of updated Scottish titles for you to enjoy this week, with nineteen newspapers from Scotland enjoying updates and 27 of our titles being updated overall.So read on to discover more about our new and updated titles of the week, and also to…

Here at The Archive, we love to learn of the discoveries you have made through our newspaper pages, and how you have used them, whether they have influenced novels, or provided information for dissertations. We were incredibly grateful, therefore, when crime writer and athletics historian Peter Lovesey contacted us with his account of sixty years of researching newspapers. From accessing historical newspapers in their original form, to scrolling through microfilm reels, and finally to searching newspapers digitally on the British…

As we approach Christmas, we at The Archive were curious to uncover Christmas recipes from the past through our newspaper collection. Would we find them to be similar to our usual Christmas feasting fare? Or would the festive food of days gone by have fallen out of favour?Well, we’ve sourced 22 delicious and unusual Christmas recipes from our newspapers to help us answer these questions. From herring pies to plum puddings, from orange cakes to mince pies, we will uncover…

This week at The Archive we have put in a sterling effort as we have now reached over 87 million pages, having added 299,609 brand new pages in all, alongside two brand new titles (the Rotherham Advertiser and the Stirling Journal and Advertiser), as we get into the festive spirit by exploring an Edwardian Christmas. That’s not all, as from Brechin to Bridgnorth, from Crawley to Cumbernauld, from Larne to Leamington Spa, we’ve updated 22 of our existing titles from across England, Scotland…

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…

In the late 1930s a newcomer made her way onto British cinema screens: Princess Kouka. From Sudan, Princess Kouka, born Tahia Ibrahim Belal, had been spotted by film producer Walter Futter, who was determined for her to appear in his next film.Using newspapers from the time, we uncover the legacy of this largely forgotten film star, who travelled to Britain and impressed audiences across the country.‘A Notable Newcomer’On 18 December 1936 London’s Daily News reported on the impending arrival…

American-born jazz age superstar Adelaide Hall (1901-1993) was a Black music legend, who from 1938 onwards made Britain her home. She went on to have a long and successful career in the UK.In this very special blog, as part of Black History Month on The Archive, we will celebrate this jazz age queen who came to Britain and entertained thousands of people via her stage and radio performances, using newspapers taken from our Archive.A Star Is BornTo go back…

Born in 1909 in Chicago, ‘dancing anthropologist’ Katherine Dunham was known as the ‘matriarch and queen mother of Black dance.’ Her father was a descendant of enslaved West Africans and Madagascans, whilst her mother hailed from Canada.A multitalented artist, academic and activist, for many years Katherine Dunham ran the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only self-supporting African-American dance troupe in the mid-twentieth century. It was during this time that Dunham toured the United Kingdom, and in this special blog, we…