Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, partners with the British Library to create one of the richest collections of primary source material in the world. Unparalleled in depth and scope, British Library Newspapers consists of two major collections from the British Library which span three hundred years of newspaper publishing in the U.K.—17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers and 19th Century Newspapers. The two collections combined contain nearly 3 million pages and 40 million articles, and can be purchased separately or together depending upon your institution's needs and requirements.
For decades, even hundreds of years after publication, researchers of all kinds, all over the world, turn to newspapers for information relating to a widest variety of research needs. The rise of newspapers in Britain was a phenomenon which characterized a new age. The newspaper was increasingly a medium for information required by the commercially minded societies of major cities and regional centers. Taken as a whole, the huge production of newspapers in Britain provides an enormous resource for research on all subjects for all of the U.K., both urban and rural. The bulk of advertising, particularly for new books and theatrical performances, has proved especially useful to historians. Cultural trends, political currents and social problems are reflected in the newspapers and give new freshness and immediacy to the historic events.
The British Library Newspapers collection contains full runs of 48 newspapers specially selected by the British Library to best represent nineteenth century Britain. This new collection includes national and regional newspapers, as well as those from both established country or university towns and the new industrial powerhouses of the manufacturing Midlands, as well as Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Special attention was paid to include newspapers that helped lead particular political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule. The penny papers aimed at the working and clerical classes are also present in the collection.
Newspaper images can be magnified for easier reading or reduced for on screen navigation. You can save and print article images, create persistent links and email them to others. When trying to print entire newspaper pages, you will need to tile them to make them legible given the differing paper size between newsprint and common office paper sizes.
To find out more about British Library Newspapers, explore the Topic Guide, which has essays and biographical information about this vibrant period. Similarly, for additional background on a specific newspaper, select "About this Publication" from a results list.