What was making front-page news on the day you came into the world? Jonathan Parkyn reveals where to find historical headlines and download newspapers to keep
It’s now easier than ever to browse and obtain copies of historical newspapers and articles, whether that means getting hold of a real, physical copy or a downloadable one. In addition, there are other archive materials – newsreel videos, comics and more – that you can view or download. In this feature we’ll be explaining where to start your research, how much it’s likely to cost you and how to get some of it for free.
Download PDFs of papers from the day you were born
Currently, one of the most reliable sources of downloadable newspapers is UKPressOnline (www.ukpressonline.co.uk), which has digitised editions of several national UK titles, including the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror.
Public access to some parts of the archive is restricted – for example, anyone can access digital editions of the Mirror dating from between 1903 and 1980, but only academic institutions can access issues that go up to present day.
To see what’s available on a specific day, type the date (DD/MM/YYYY format) into the search box on the homepage and click Date Search. You’ll be greeted by thumbnails representing the pages available for that date.
To view a larger preview or download a copy to your PC, you’ll need to subscribe to the archive. You’ll have to pay for a one- or two-day subscription, but you can download everything you need within that time frame. An all-inclusive 24-hour subscription costs £7.50, while 48-hour access to either the Mirror or Express archives costs £5.99 each. Click the Shop link for details. To download pages, click the Register link at the top and sign up for an account – this process is free and grants you access to the archives of Victorian regional paper, the South Eastern Gazette (www.snipca.com/16818), for nothing.
Now go back to the shop and select the subscription you want. At the checkout you’ll be prompted to pay with PayPal. You don’t actually need a PayPal account for this – instead you can click the ‘Pay with debit or credit card’ option on the PayPal page and enter your card details.
Once you’ve paid, go back to the UKPressOnline page and, making sure you’re still signed in, carry out your date search again. This time, you’ll be able to click the Save PDF icon under each page you want and download a digital copy to your PC. Be warned that the quality of some of the scans is a little low. You’ll need a PDF reader, such as Adobe Reader (free from www.snipca.com/16794), installed on your PC to view the files.
Download other newspapers for free
The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) has set itself the admirable (and unenviable) task of digitising a staggering 40 million newspaper pages from the British Library’s vast collection over the next decade. There are already hundreds of millions of articles online, all searchable by keyword.
The site specialises in regional press dating from the early 1700s to mid-20th Century, though nationals, such as the Daily Telegraph, are gradually being added too. You can narrow your research to a specific title or county, as well as search by date.
As with UKPressOnline, you need to register and pay for a subscription before you can download anything. The cheapest package costs £9.95 (www.snipca.com/16820), which grants you a month’s access. Currently, this collection is a little hit and miss, so before you cough up any cash we definitely recommend clicking the Advanced Search button and searching the archive to see whether there’s anything relevant on your specific date or dates.
Some of the larger collections of newspapers are restricted to academic use, including Gale News Vault (www.snipca.com/16800), which contains digitised editions of The Times, Daily Mail, Independent and satirical magazine Punch, which closed in 2002. If you have access to a university or library that subscribes to the Gale News Vault, you may be able to view some online content, but access is not permitted on an individual basis.
Other online archives are more freely available. Welsh Newspapers Online (www.snipca.com/16821), for example, has a searchable archive of 7.6 million articles published in a variety of Welsh papers between 1804 and 1919. You can’t currently download PDFs (this feature is due to be added at some point), but you can search by date and take a screenshot of anything you want to save. The simplest way to take a screenshot is to press PrtScn on your keyboard, open an image editor such as Paint, and then press Ctrl+V to paste the screenshot into it.
For something a bit different, browse the collection of downloadable historic comic books found at the Digital Comic Museum (http://digitalcomicmuseum.com). The archive is a little chaotically ordered and most of the content is from the US rather than the UK, but all public-domain comics are free to download once you’ve registered with the site.
Download newsreels from the day you were born
It’s not just newspapers that can help you mark a moment in time. Other archive materials, including video, can bring the past to life even more effectively.
The web hosts a number of burgeoning video archives that let you view and, in some cases, download clips, newsreels or entire programmes from the era in question. Head to the British Pathé site (www.britishpathe.com) for a brilliant selection of 90,000 clips, including news articles, football matches and more, spanning the best part of the 20th Century. Use the Advanced Search option to narrow your search by date (the day or year you were born, for example). Pathé clips are free to watch online, but if you want a copy to download and keep, you’ll need to pay around £30.
The BBC Archive (www.snipca.com/16802) has a handful of interesting historical collections worth browsing, too. Also try the Internet Archive’s library of royalty-free clips (https://archive.org/movies), and you can always search YouTube for your birth year to see what comes up.
GIVE A HISTORICAL GIFT
Downloading and viewing old newspapers online is great, but if you’re looking for a gift, then a scruffy A4 inkjet printout is unlikely to cut it. Instead, you could consider ordering a physical copy of a newspaper from the date in question from the web.
One of the most popular sites offering such a service is Historic Newspapers (www.historic-newspapers.co.uk), which claims to be one of the largest private collections of original British newspapers in the world and at any given time holds around 7 million original editions dating from 1900 to the present day. Head to the site and choose your date from the dropdown menus on the homepage to see what’s available.
Because all the archive’s newspapers are genuine originals rather than copies, you’re not necessarily guaranteed to find anything on your chosen date. But in most cases you should find a wide variety of national papers to choose from, including the Guardian, Times, Daily Express and the London Evening Standard. Prices start at around £25 per copy, though there’s a surcharge for rarer editions, including some Sunday papers. Should you wish, you can add a number of gift options – boxes, folders or frames – and a personalised certificate to your order.