Researchers can now explore 2 million free newspaper 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.