British Library Newspapers

James Greenwood – Social Reformer or Opportunist?

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by Rory Herbert

James Greenwood was an author of relative obscurity who came to fame abruptly following the publication of his serial A Night in the Workhouse in the 1860s by the Pall Mall Gazette. He soon found himself rising through the ranks of the Victorian social ladder and became one of the leading social commentators of his age. This revolutionary piece saw Greenwood experience the conditions of a workhouse firsthand in one of the first examples of investigative journalism. Yet, while his work was quickly adopted by social reformers and critics alike, it seems the author himself was somewhat less interested in the people he claimed to support and, instead, focused on appealing to a wider audience.

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The Stuart Papers: from Neglect and Oblivion to the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle

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We know that the Stuart Papers were acquired by George IV when he was Prince Regent (1811-1820) following the death of Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York, the final Jacobite heir, and that it was around this time they were moved from Rome back to the UK. They’re now housed in the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle. I decided to search through Gale Primary Sources, focusing particularly on newspapers and periodicals, to see if I could find out more about how the papers of the exiled Jacobite heirs returned to the UK, and how it has been reported in the press at that time, and since. The initial discovery of the Stuart Papers and their subsequent journey from Rome to Windsor Castle makes fascinating reading.

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The eruption of Krakatoa, August 1883: the first global media event

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On August 26th 1883, Krakatoa erupted. Not, of course, out of a clear blue sky; ash columns and steam plumes had been filling the sky over the island and its archipelago for days, the area had been experiencing tremors and earthquakes for years, and smaller explosions had been throwing up ash, changing the tides and, presumably, worrying the locals for months.

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Chinese National Day

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By Cathy Huang

Chinese National Day is celebrated on October 1st every year to commemorate the founding of the People’s Republic of China with lots of large-scale activities held nationwide. It’s followed by ‘Golden Week’, a seven-day holiday from the 1st to the 7th of October, during which many Chinese people travel around the country and abroad.

There had been Chinese national celebrations in October prior to the establishment of the PRC as the removal of the final Chinese dynasty (the Qing) sprung from the Wuchang Uprising on 10th October 1911, after which Sun Yat-sen sought to consolidate a Republic. Consequently, for many years the nation commemorated the formation of the Republic in October. In 1945 The Western Daily Press and Bristol Mirror – one of the papers included in Gale’s British Library Newspapers digital archive – briefly described how National Day was celebrated in the region that year.

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