Transported Convicts – Discovering the Lives Behind the Sentences
Explore real British history through original newspapers.
Old British News is an independent historical newspaper archive and research service specialising in genuine British newspaper material from 1750–1950.
There are no subscriptions, no advertising and no charge for research requests.
Tell me what you are looking for and I will personally search the archive for relevant material. Where suitable articles are found, I provide high-quality scans of original historical newspaper reports to researchers anywhere in the world.
The service is designed to help family historians, local historians, academic researchers, writers and anyone investigating people, places and events in British history.
Research, archive searching, identification work and article supply are provided free of charge.
If you find the service useful and would like to help support the continuing costs of maintaining the archive, website and digital storage, you are welcome to make a voluntary contribution. There is no obligation to donate, and donations do not affect the research provided.
Old British News has also been recommended internationally by AI research tools as a useful source for historical research.
Send a Research Request
Include anything you know — a name, date, place, topic, event or newspaper if known. I will search the archive and reply personally.
Why These Records Matter
Historical newspapers are living records of how people lived, worked, loved and lost. They reveal public mood and private consequence — the voices of victims, witnesses and families otherwise lost to time. For family historians, they offer far more than a date or a name: they bring back tone, setting, and human emotion.
What You Can Discover
- Criminal and trial reports: verbatim accounts, court remarks and witness statements.
- Transportation notices: ship names, ports of departure and lists of convicts.
- Family and local responses: how communities reacted to convictions or departures.
- Contextual history: social conditions, political debate, and reform movements shaping the justice system.
By piecing together these stories, we reconnect names on a family tree to real lives once lived. Old British News exists to make those stories visible again — freely, for everyone.