This week we have a lot to celebrate here at The Archive. Not only is it our 8th birthday (The Archive was launched on 29th November 2011) – we have also reached the remarkable milestone of 35 million pages – all now available to search.We have added 128,362 new pages to our collection this week, with one brand new title – the Sporting Gazette – joining us. We also have updates to six of our existing titles, with extensive updates to Scottish title the Elgin Courant,…

Performing a search for cricket in our oldest British Newspaper Archive publications (the Archive’s earliest pages run from 1699) it is possible to discover the fascinating history of the enduringly popular sport. In this special blog we will look at cricket’s early association with royalty, its emergence as a gambling sport, and its inevitable explosion in popularity.Kentish Gazette | 23 June 1773An early and passionate advocate for the sport was Prince Frederick of Wales, father of George III, who was popularly thought…

The first recorded mention of women’s cricket was in 1745, in Surrey. We searched our Archive for early mentions of women’s cricket, and we came across a treasure trove of articles describing the early history of the sport.Harrow versus Pinner | Graphic | 18 August 1888One of these comes from the Sherborne Mercury, published in August 1849. It describes a match between ‘nine married ladies’ and ‘nine single ladies’ played at Picket Post, in the New Forest. The single ladies were defeated by one…

This week we have added 57,277 new pages to The Archive. We are excited to welcome specialist sporting title – the Football Post (Nottingham) – to our collection, with 1069 issues added so far. We now have thirteen specialist sporting newspapers available to search – you can find a comprehensive list of sporting newspapers here, as well as hints and tips for using The Archive for sporting research here.We have also updated five of our existing titles, including three of our London titles – the…

We are delighted to feature a guest post this week by Peter Manning, who used The Archive to research his new book Palace at the Palace – A History of The Crystal Palace & Its Football Club 1851-1915.My project started out as research into the Crystal Palace football teams that played at the old Crystal Palace at Sydenham, but the history that was revealed by searching the BNA’s archives was so interesting and so compelling that I ended up writing a book…

The British Newspaper Archive is the perfect research tool for discovering the history of your favourite sports team or delving into the origins of your local club or venue.Register today!Sport is one of the most searched topics on the site and it’s easy to see why. From historical match fixtures and results, through to news articles and photographs of history’s most iconic sporting moments, the depth and breadth of knowledge the Archive can offer is truly endless.How…

Last year, we donated 100 subscriptions to Wikipedia’s volunteer editors to help expand public information about historical topics. Brian Chapman has worked with Wikipedia for over five years and made around 42,000 edits to the online encyclopedia. He got in touch to tell us about one of the pages he’s improved with the help of our newspapers.**************When I heard about the collaboration between The British Newspaper Archive and Wikipedia, I jumped at the chance to take part. I’ve long been fascinated…

A 13-year-old schoolboy has held the record for the highest cricket score for over 100 years.Arthur Edward Jeune ‘James’ Collins, also known by the initials A. E. J. Collins, scored an incredible 628 not out in June 1899. The cricket match took place over four days at Clifton College in Bristol.Blackburn Standard reports a score of ‘628 not out’A copy of the Blackburn Standard printed on 1 July 1899 reveals that Collins achieved the majority of his team’s total score. Out of a…

We’ve been reading stories about the history of Wimbledon in The Archive, and have found some terrific newspaper reports.Here’s an article about the arrival of the electronic scoreboard on Centre Court in 1929, published in the Derby Daily Telegraph.Derby Daily Telegraph | 21 June 19291929 Ladies’ Wimbledon Final | Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News | 13 July 1929Read some of the other historical newspaper stories about Wimbledon that we’ve been posting on the blog.Derby Daily Telegraph – Friday 21 June 1929Image © Northcliffe Media Limited. Image created…

The fact that the green, purple and white colours of the Suffragette Movement are the same colours used by Wimbledon, has sometimes been commented upon.With this in mind, we thought we’d try and find some newspaper stories that bring together Wimbledon and the suffragettes.Oh, and we found some stories! We found two reports about an incident in 1913 when a suffragette attempted to burn down Wimbledon. One from the time, in the Derby Daily Telegraph, and another from fifteen…