05 September 2022
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Researchers can now explore 2 million free newspaper pages
The British Newspaper Archive in partnership with the British Library, has made a further one million historical newspaper pages available completely free to the public, reaching a new total of two million free pages.
Together, the British Newspaper Archive and the British Library are committed to releasing a total of five million free pages over five years, which can be accessed online on the British Newspaper Archive website and on FindMyPast.
Much of this content has been made available as part of several major digitisation projects based at the British Library: 19th Century Newspapers; Heritage Made Digital, which seeks to transform digital access to the British Library’s rare and early collections; and the Living with Machines research project, a collaboration between the British Library, The Alan Turing Institute and five partner universities, and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) via UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Strategic Priorities Fund.
These free pages, covering the years 1699-1900 across 244 titles, increase the accessibility of historical newspapers to more people around the world. Researchers can browse the beautiful images of the Illustrated London Life, discover their Scottish roots in the Glasgow Herald, or explore the history of Ireland with the United Irishman. One particularly intriguing title is Berthold’s Political Handkerchief, famously printed on calico, a type of fabric, in order to get around paying the newspaper stamp tax of the time.
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Also included are Welsh language titles Y Tyst and Y Llan, 22,113 pages from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and 167,534 pages from Scotland, including the Edinburgh Gazette of 1699, the oldest newspaper digitised by the project so far.
Explore the collections
Explore the collections on the British Newspaper Archive website and on FindMyPast.