Cyril Power, Air Raid (1935): British biplanes tangling with an unidentified enemy against a smoke-filled sky. It is tempting, given the date, to see this as an air raid of the next war, especially given Power’s marked interest in machines and speed and influence by Futurism and Vorticism. But it could just as well be […]
It’s been six months since the last one and so it’s time for another update of my list of early 20th century British newspapers online. The most pleasing addition to the list of newspaper archives for 1901-1950 is the Spectator, the most influential conservative weekly of the period. The Spectator archive is free; near-complete from
One of the most intriguing things to emerge from my post-blogging of the Blitz a few years ago (but which sadly didn’t make it into my Blitz article) was the notion of reprisals after notice, that is to say, of publishing a list of German cities which would be bombed intensively until the Luftwaffe ceased
The main reason for my recent New Zealand trip was to go to a conference, but afterwards I spent a week researching in Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand. My main reason for that was to look into the trans-Tasman counterpart to the 1918 mystery aeroplane scare in Australia. I didn’t
Previously I looked at Excubitor’s claim that in 1913 the Anglo-German naval race was turning into a more dangerous aero-naval one, and that Britain, having won the first was now in the process of losing the other. Here I’ll look at some related strands of thought in the press more generally, and what the point
In my article about the commercial bomber concept, I began my discussion of the idea that airliners could be turned into bombers in 1918, with the report of the Civil Aerial Transport Committee. But it turns out that it appeared some years earlier, though in a far more fragmentary and undeveloped form than in the
A widespread assumption in 1913 was that the mysterious airships then being seen in British skies were real and German. The vast majority certainly were not: there were just too many of them, in too many places, for no conceivable purpose. But it remains a possibility that a few of them really were German airships.
Having updated my list of online early 20th century British newspapers, I have mostly good news to report. The most exciting development comes from Wales. I have previously lamented the total lack of digitised Welsh newspapers from the period 1901-1950, and it appears that in large part the reason for this is that the National
In May 1909, the three major organisations promoting aviation in Britain, the Aeronautical Society, the Aero Club, and the newly-formed Aerial League, announced that they would henceforth coordinate their efforts. The Aerial League would be recognised as ‘the paramount body for patriotic movements and for education’, the Aeronautical Society ‘the paramount scientific authority on aeronautical
I’ve updated my list of online British newspaper archives. This time, the new titles are: Aberdeen Journal AJR Information Catholic Herald Connacht Sentinel Cork Examiner Jewish Chronicle Irish Press Irish Times Kilkenny People Louth and North Lincolnshire Advertiser Nenagh News Northants Evening Telegraph The Post/Sunday Post (Dundee) Sligo Champion Sowerby Bridge News Many of these
