Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Liverpool Echo, 22 February 1913, 4
1910s, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Friday, 21 February 1913

The Liverpool Echo provides some additional information about the Scarborough airship reported yesterday (p. 4; above). It turns out that it was actually seen ‘either once or twice in the early part of the present month’ [February 1913], so why it has only come to light now is unclear. According to the Echo, Miss Hollings […]

Evening Telegraph, 20 February 1913, 4
1910s, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Thursday, 20 February 1913

Although phantom airships have often been in the news lately, none have actually been reported for more than a week. The Dundee Evening Telegraph and Post breaks the drought today with a sighting from Scarborough, on the coast of the North Riding of Yorkshire (p. 4; above). No date is given, unfortunately. At least two

Daily Mirror, 17 February 1913, 5
1910s, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Plots and tables, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Monday, 17 February 1913

The Daily Mirror has a curious item today under the headline ‘BRITAIN’S PERIL IN THE AIR’ (p. 5; above). It is apparently a statement made yesterday by an unidentified ‘famous naval tactician’, but instead of setting it out as an article or a letter to the editor it is given as an extended quotation with

Daily Mail, 15 February 1913, 5
1910s, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Saturday, 15 February 1913

The Aerial Navigation Bill, introduced into the House of Commons only a week ago, is now the Aerial Navigation Act, 1913, as the Daily Mail records (p. 5; above): The Aerial Navigation Bill received the Royal Assent yesterday and comes into operation at once. Foreign airships will now cross England at their peril unless their

Daily Herald, 14 February 1913, 6
1910s, Air defence, Aircraft, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Friday, 14 February 1913

Yesterday, the Daily Mail said that the Aerial Navigation Bill would be put before the Lords next week. In fact, as today’s issue reveals, the bill already ‘passed through all its stages in the House of Lords late last night‘ (p. 5). Moreover, ‘all the regulations for the enforcement of the Government’s Aerial Navigation Bill

Daily Mail, 13 February 1913, 5
1910s, Air defence, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Thursday, 13 February 1913

The Aeroplane today suggests that ‘The visits of the various “scare-ships” have evidently not been without salutary effect’, if they have given rise to the present Aerial Navigation Bill (p. 162). The Daily Mail would tend to agree, but hopes for more. It devotes both its first leading article and nearly a column’s worth of

The Times, 12 February, 7
1910s, International law, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Wednesday, 12 February 1913

The Times hasn’t been ignoring the phantom airships, but neither has it focused its editorial attention on them — until now. The third leading article in today’s issue is in support of the government’s new Aerial Navigation Bill, arguing that ‘This strengthening of existing legislative powers can hardly be thought premature, and may indeed be

Daily Mail, 11 February 1913, 3
1910s, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Tuesday, 11 February 1913

There is little overt mention of phantom airships in today’s newspapers, but quite a few allusions. They all accompany the news, published in all the major papers, that last night the Secretary for War, Colonel Seely, introduced to the House of Commons an Aerial Navigation Bill to amend the 1911 Aerial Navigation Act. The bill

1910s, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Monday, 10 February 1913

Any provincial newspaper with pretensions to quality features a regular column from its (usually anonymous) London correspondent which offers a mixture of political gossip and analysis as well as anecdotes of life in the capital and other, less classifiable tidbits. Today’s ‘Our London correspondence’ column in the Manchester Guardian, for example, previews the coming week

Liverpool Echo, 8 February 1913, 6
1910s, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures, Post-blogging the 1913 scareships

Saturday, 8 February 1913

Two new airship reports today. First, from the Liverpool Echo (p. 6, above): Between eight and half-past eight last night [7 February 1913] at least a dozen people in London-road, Northwich, observed a bright light in the sky, and were emphatically convinced that it proceeded from an airship. Rays seemed distinctly to emanate from the

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