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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…

So far this November we’ve been celebrating all things local history, and earlier this month we brought you a guide on how to discover more about the history of your street. But now we turn from urban to rural, as we take a look at how to uncover the history of those places where there might only be one street, the hamlets and the villages of the United Kingdom.This blog, therefore, will show you how to uncover local history…

This year marks the 80th anniversary of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s most famous speeches. Coming to power after the failure of predecessor Neville Chamberlain to secure peace, Churchill faced a titanic task, and it was through his speeches that he laid down his powerful mantra.In this blog we will take a look at public feeling around the potential for peace with Germany during the weeks that Churchill came to power, and contemporary reactions to Churchill’s speeches in the…

This week we have added 118,516 new pages to The Archive. We have added one new title, the New Ross Standard, published in County Wexford, and we have additions to five of our existing titles, including one of the oldest continuously published periodicals in the world, Lloyd’s List, and late twentieth century additions to the Lichfield Mercury.With the help of our recently added titles, we take a look this week at the interrelation between newspapers and the Second Boer War (1899-1902).…

In this special blog post, we use newspapers from The Archive to investigate how the fallen soldiers of the First World War were remembered, and consequently, how all those killed in military conflicts across the world came to be commemorated via war memorials.Upon the cessation of conflict on 11 November 1918 there was hardly a household in Great Britain that had not been impacted by the horrendous number of casualties inflicted during the past four years. And not just in Great…

During the First World War (1914-1918), the role of women in Britain was massively altered and the women’s sphere was enlarged in every direction. Some historians mark the First World War as a watershed moment in women’s history when women were looked at less as fragile creatures and more as robust figures.  A single blog post is not enough to explore all the contributions of women during the Great War, but we have combed through The British Newspaper Archive and pulled…

In war, food becomes a major concern.  Supplying the army and home-front with enough food is a huge logistical undertaking.  With a large army abroad in hostile territory, and the home-front far from self-sufficient, ensuring that they are kept fed and healthy becomes a primary concern for government and a national obsession.  As part of our focus on all things Military & Wartime during November, we have searched the newspapers to discover more about the history of food in wartime.An…

In discussing the fashions during the Second World War, we turn to the pages of Britannia and Eve.  Along with providing general news, this paper has dedicated sections on such topics as fashion, home, and knitting. Wonderful illustrations and photographs are included amongst its pages.Explore all our fashion findings here!KnittingKnitting advice and patterns are no strangers to the pages of our newspapers. It could be said that the value of such readily available information was made all…

War impacts every part of life, some more obvious than others. In this post, we will explore the impact of war on fashion; particularly, we will look at how the topics of economy and quality shaped war-time fashion. The article excerpts included in this post are from two recurring columns: ‘The Highway of Fashion‘, printed in The Tatler, and ‘Fashions by Jean Burnup‘, printed in Britannia and Eve.Explore knitting and fashion in the Second World WarEconomyWith the…

When you first think of the Great War, I’d wager that fashion is not the first thing to come to mind. However, it was, in fact, on the mind of many who lived through those years of war.There are several series dedicated to the topic of fashion that ran throughout the war years and that you can find in The British Newspaper Archive: (1) ‘Woman’s Sphere in War Time’, printed in The Sphere; (2) ‘Woman’s Ways’, printed in The Sketch; (3) ‘The…