1889 was the year of the Cleveland Street scandal, in which a male brothel was raided in Cleveland Street, in London’s West End. At the time, sexual acts between men were illegal in Britain, and those who visited the house of assignation on Cleveland Street faced prosecution. However, due to the high social standing of many of the clientele of 19 Cleveland Street, only a few men faced prison time, as the British government were accused of covering up the scandal in…
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Long before Agatha Christie envisioned murder on the Orient Express, or before she wondered what might have taken place on the 4.50 from Paddington, murder, mystery and mayhem were already well established on the railways of Britain and beyond.The first victim of murder on British railways was 70-year-old Thomas Briggs. In this special blog, we will take a look at his story, as well as nine others sourced from the pages of our newspaper Archive, which tell the strange, the…
From April this year our long-term partner the British Library has been home to a fantastic exhibition – Breaking the News – which investigates the ‘big questions about the news we consume.’ Exploring how the news shapes the world around us, the exhibition combines different news mediums from five centuries, from radio to television, from pamphlets to newspapers, as well as using objects and artefacts from the British Library’s extensive collection.Book your tickets for the Breaking the News exhibition hereAnd…
Today we have reached a landmark of 50 million pages all now available to search on the British Newspaper Archive. That’s 50 million pages of news stories that span four centuries, from 1699 to 2009, that come from the United Kingdom and Ireland, and beyond. And we’re not stopping here – we plan to add millions more pages over the coming weeks, months and years.When the British Newspaper Archive was launched in partnership with the British Library in November 2011 a goal of 40 million pages…
With Halloween approaching, we wanted to see what we could find related to the topic of hauntings in The British Newspaper Archive.Of children and hauntingsOften the origins of a haunting myth are rooted in death and loss. Sometimes the myth grows and morphs to such a point where its origin is indeterminate. Other times, the sad truth of its origin is unexpectedly revealed, as with the ‘grim discovery’ at a ‘haunted house’ in 1921, reported in The Scotsman.This…
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In the month of August, we have looked at occupations and employment through the newspapers. To finish our theme this month, we are taking a closer look at coal miners, specifically in the 19th century. An initial search for miners reveals explosions, accidents, and strikes in the vast amount of mines operating across Great Britain. We will look at these topics in closer detail.The first coal mine was sunk in Scotland, under the Firth of Forth in 1575. As the…
On 31 July 1910, Hawley Harvey Crippen, better known as Dr Crippen, and Ethel Le Neve, his typist-turned-lover, were arrested on board the Montrose while trying to flee west to Canada. On top of being a sensational case and arrest, it was the first example of an arrest aided by wireless telegraphy.A cross-Atlantic chase of a fleeing couple is an apt ending to our July theme of travel and migration. When you ask yourself why your ancestor or the subject of…
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The British Newspaper Archive is packed with weird and wonderful stories of every description.Search the newspapersHowever, of all the historic titles in this collection, no publication reported the bizarre and the shocking in quite the same way as the Illustrated Police News.The Illustrated Police News was one of Britain’s very first tabloids and one of the first periodicals to tap into the British public’s morbid appetite for crime and sensation. The paper was founded in 1843 and was…
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The British Newspaper Archive is full of grisly stories about the unusual and the unexplained. We’ve selected some of the oddest tales, including a description of a monster with the head of a sea lion and a rumour that Germany was turning dead soldiers into explosives during the First World War.Let us know if you’ve found a story to rival these. You can comment below or post on our Facebook page.1) 1877: A bizarre 70-foot beastA very strange creature…
If you’ve ever explored the Illustrated Police News at The British Newspaper Archive, you’ll know it’s full of fantastically melodramatic images and stories.We think we may have come across our favourite illustration so far.Victorian ladies attacked by an octopusThis image graced the front page of the Illustrated Police News on Saturday 17 October 1896. It depicts four Victorian ladies attempting to flee from the sweetest-looking octopus we’ve ever seen.Illustrated Police News – Saturday 17 October 1896Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.…
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