Historical Primary Resources

Digital collection of the newspapers, pamphlets, and books gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817). The resource helps chart the development of the concept of 'news' and 'newspapers' and the "free press", and includes nearly 1 million pages and approximately 1,270 titles.

Includes access to:

British Library Newspapers, Part I: 1800-1900:

Ranging from early tabloids like the Illustrated Police News to radical papers like the Chartist Northern Star, the 47 publications in Part I span national, regional, and local interests. Other notable papers of Part I include the Morning Chronicle, with famous contributors such as Henry Mayhew and John Stuart Mill; the Graphic, publishing both illustrations and news as well as illustrated fiction; and the Examiner, the radical reformist and leading intellectual journal.

British Library Newspapers, Part II: 1800-1900

Part II includes additional English regional newspapers with 22 additional publications. Researchers can find the newspapers of a number of towns and regions included in this collection: Nottingham, Bradford, Leicester, Sheffield, and York, as well as North Wales. The addition of two major London newspapers, The Standard and the Morning Post, captures conservative opinion in the nineteenth century, balancing the progressive, more liberal views of the newspapers that appear in Part I.

British Library Newspapers, Part III: 1741-1950

Part III includes 35 newspapers, encompassing provincial news journals like the Leeds Intelligencer and Hull Daily Mail, local interest publications such as the Northampton Mercury, and specialist titles such as the Poor Law Unions’ Gazette. Other noteworthy titles in Part III include the Westmoreland Gazette, whose early editor, Thomas De Quincy (of Confessions of an English Opium Eater) was forced to resign due to his unreliability.

British Library Newspapers, Part IV: 1732-1950

From early newspaper titles like the Stamford Mercury to what may be the oldest magazine in the world still in publication, the Scots Magazine, the 23 newspapers in Part IV offer local and regional perspectives from Aberdeen, Bath, Chester, Derby, Stamford, Liverpool, and York. In addition, Part IV includes the 1901-1950 runs of papers such as the Aberdeen Journal and Dundee Courier whose earlier newspapers are available in Part I and Part II.

British Library Newspapers, Part V: 1746-1950

With a concentration of titles from the northern part of the United Kingdom, the 36 newspapers in Part V includes titles from the Scottish localities of Fife, Elgin, Inverness, Paisley, and John O'Groats, as well as towns just below the border, such as Morpeth, Alnwick, and more. Includes access to the Coventry Herald, which features some of the earliest published writing of Mary Ann Evans (better known as George Eliot).