London’s Mayor-Elect of 1890: A Huguenot Heritage in Public Office Today voters across England, Wales, and Scotland head to the polls for local elections, including high-profile mayoral contests in London, Liverpool, and Salford. The noise of campaigns, the scrutiny of manifestos, and the political theatre that now surrounds such events […]
Old British News – Journal
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When they write the story of Queen Victoria the picture portrayed is generally that of a slightly stubborn, rather unhappy widowed monarch. In a way she had much to be miserable about. After giving birth to 9 children, the love of her life dying in 1861 and then seemingly spending […]
I think we forget how immediate news media is today. Here is an edition of The Western Times – Monday 15 April 1912. The editorial feels quite eerie. Whilst Devonians were having breakfast reading their daily ration of news, meanwhile in the Atlantic the worse shipping disaster in history is […]
November 1931 and The Hull Daily Mail were warning its readers of the perils of the dreaded Friday 13th. You have been warned!
As we all know RMS Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 causing the deaths of 1,514 people. However on the 16th April 1912 The Western Times, in a remarkable editorial blunder, was reporting ‘Good News’, Titanic and all on board are safe. “An enormous load of anxiety has been lifted from […]
I found this White Star Line advertisement in The Western Times – exactly 100 years old. Here they are promoting their premium ships, Olympic and Titanic. Three weeks later the sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. Meanwhile Olympic‘s […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]