If it happened, it was in the news.
It’s 1950 and Mr. Clifford Gwilliam, the manager of the Theatre Royal, Exeter (Devon) is confidently reassuring audiences at nearby Ottery St. Mary British Legion that he thought television was a “passing phase”. By the middle of the 20th century the British cinema and filmmaking industry was heartening audiences and no doubt investors that this […]
The 50th Jubilee of George III on the 25th October 1810 was a comparatively low-key affair. Two issues overshadowed the possibility of extensive celebrations – the overall mental and physical health of the monarch and the serious illness of the king’s favourite daughter, Princess Amelia who was to die shortly after this report. “In late […]
Following the industrial revolution and certainly by the 1850’s pauperism in Victorian Great Britain was at an alarming level. By 1875 one person in six was designated a pauper. From the 1840’s onwards populations of British cities had swollen to an alarming level as thousands left the traditional agricultural life to find a new life […]
There is no doubt that some Victorians were a tad mad, unquestionably overzealous and downright eccentric. Few epitomise this more than Henry Tracey Coxwell (1819–1900), the Victorian aeronaut (born 2 March 1819, Wouldham, Kent – died 5 January 1900, Lewes, Sussex), an English aeronaut whose obsession with ballooning knew no bounds. By Victorian standards he […]
Only 8% of Anderson Shelters constructed in Nottingham in 1940 had been ‘satisfactorily fixed’ as this report from the Nottingham Evening Post of Monday 15 April 1940 explains (click the image to read the full story). Anderson air-raid shelters were designed to accommodate up to six people. The main principle of protection was based on […]
As the Victorian age was slowly coming to a close the brave and exciting Edwardian era was to bring a brief and thrilling period for invention and development. Experiments in wireless broadcasting were already underway, cable telegraph transmissions throughout the Empire were already established, the motor car was beginning to feature on our roads and […]
The 23rd October 1880 and one of the leading pen companys are giving good advice to writers whilst promoting their range of products. Macniven and Cameron were a long established company that finally closed in 1964. Macniven and Cameron Ltd., later known as Waverley Cameron Ltd.,was a printing and stationery company based in Edinburgh, […]
The Victorians were famously highly inventive. Many business people were keen to add to the community. In 1851 Hodges Distillery Fire Brigade was founded. In 1862 Mr. Frederick Hodges erected a 125 foot iron lookout for fires in the immediate area. Mr. Hodges’ fire service was in fact so advanced that he had the telegraph […]
The Penny Illustrated Paper on the 17th January 1863 is a reporting a most dreadful matter at The Bank of England. It appears that there has been forgery undertaken involving £10 paper and “fifties”.
The mid 1800’s was boom time for railway companys in Great Britain. Just as today with new technologies businesses were fighting to stay ahead of the game despite endless reports in the press of accidents across the railway system. Travelling between Birmingham and London in 1840 took a staggering eight hours by rail and sixteen […]
I have been doing some of my own family research and I have just learned that an unrelated person sharing a family name (Churchward) was found shot dead in a field in Devon in 1886. This though is not (as far as the press is concerned) a dastardly murder but a terrible accident. Samuel Churchward […]
The original Victorian Opera House in Malta’s capital, Valletta was constructed in the 1860′s. These are extracts from The Builder, 2nd May 1863. The New Opera House, Malta was designed by the British architect, Edward Middleton Barry (7 June 1830 – 27 January 1880). Barry’s portfolio to date up to the mid 1860’s was already […]
These past few weeks have been the busiest for Old British News with the redevelopment of the site, the transcribing and uploading of a massive new database (written: 29 September 2011). I have processed thousands of lines of searchable archive consisting of the names, dates and places of those sentenced to death in the 1800’s […]
