Newspapers are invaluable for researching ancestors, before the census or the registration of births, marriages and deaths, and, as databases often enable searches by names, individuals may be identified in stories, obituaries and announcements.

The news then was rather different. Although some topics seem familiar, like crime and politics, the substance was otherwise. Many of the adverts were for footmen, grooms, maids, governesses and butlers, and the announcements were frequently of aristocratic entertainments. The prose might be stilted, and the reports of property sales, bankruptcies and auctions dull, but the stories are often fascinating.

One early journalist was Daniel Defoe, who in 1704 began his Review. Another writer, Jonathan Swift, contributed to the Examiner, started in 1710. The Norwich Post appeared in 1701, and the Edinburgh Courant in 1705. There were 36 papers by the 1720s, but the government soon levied a tax on them. In spite of this and other measures, by 1753 sales exceeded seven million, and 11 million by 1767. The Belfast News Letter, founded in 1737 by Francis Joy, is the oldest English-language daily newspaper still in publication. The Observer, first published in 1791, was the world’s first Sunday newspaper. British newspaper prices mid-century ranged from one to three pennies.

American newspapers first appeared in the colonial period, most famously with the New England Courant in 1721. Founded by James Franklin, his celebrated brother Benjamin Franklin contributed articles under the pen name ‘Silence Dogood’.

Crimes and misdemeanours
The Stamford Mercury, perhaps Britain’s oldest continuously published newspaper, dates from 1712. One 1715 issue published one of London’s weekly bills of mortality. Leading causes of death were convulsion and consumption, followed by ‘age’, ‘teeth’ and ‘gripping of the guts’. A piece in 1790 details how robbers on the Hammersmith Road attacked one victim, demanding ‘deliver your money’, and beat him over the head with a bludgeon, rifling his pockets and even stealing some of his clothes. In 1725, the Mercury reported that: ‘A duel was fought in Hyde Park between Captain Draper of the Foot Guards… and Mr Arbuthnot, a merchant… On the second fire the Captain was shot in the thigh. They then took to swords.’ Another duel is mentioned in 1792 by the Bury and Norwich Post: ‘Last week two fervent maids in Cork, fought a duel with knives, when one of them stabbed the other in the belly, and it is feared the wound will prove mortal. The cause was jealousy.’

An Ipswich Journal in 1792 reported a victim being ‘flopped’ by a footpad who robbed him of seven guineas on the North Road near Hilton. In 1733, a hunter, Daniel Spalding, used the Journal to boast about killing ‘three brace of otters and one young dog otter, near the City of Norfolk’, and earlier ‘a brace of bitch otters’, hunting them until his dogs ‘drew them into view.’ Blood sports were all the rage, especially cockfights, publicised in many papers, the venue often being a cockpit at a pub.

Papers could have impressive titles, like, in Ireland, the Hibernian Journal or Chronicle of Liberty. In 1764 the Dublin Courier featured several short snippets, including: ‘Cork, November 24: this day a man dropped dead in Poultney’s Lane after eating a hearty meal.’ Saunders’s News Letter, published from 1755, was one of Dublin’s most important newspapers. A 1793 issue included a wanted ad for a ladies’ maid ‘who dresses hair well, washes linen…’ and ‘is a Protestant…’

A 1798 Manchester Mercury advertised a stagecoach service. ‘Expeditious travelling at reduced fares from Manchester to London in 36 hours… guarded and lighted all the way.’ Fares were two guineas inside, one pound and four shillings outside. In the same issue was a list of ‘gamekeepers’ deputations’, one reading: ‘John Sandwell, to Lord Archibald Hamilton, for the Manor of Nether Wyersdale.’ Lords of the manor then deputised a gamekeeper to kill game and registered this in the press.

The Kentish Gazette first appeared in 1717. A 1795 edition reported the arrest of footpads found with loaded pistols, and another issue sung the praises of Doctor Broden’s Botanical Syrup, which, apparently, cured the daughter of one Thomas Stinton of leprosy. Velne’s Vegetable Syrup, publicised in other papers, supposedly cured not only leprosy, but also gout, ulcerated legs, scrofula, ague, putrid fever and dropsy.

Executions were a regular part of the news, and the demeanour of those executed was often noted. The Gazette in 1786 mentions four men hanged for robbery and sheep stealing. ‘All four, standing in the cart, were tied up to the gallows. Ward, with great composure, said to the others, are you ready to die? If you are, let us take leave of one another.’ They shook hands before being executed. Some papers had a long list of those executed, together with their crimes, from highway robbery to theft of a pocketbook.

A 1752 Salisbury and Winchester Journal writes of a woman ‘guilty of some enormity’ being so angry at being committed to Bridewell that she pulled off the judge’s wig and threw it on the fire. He ordered her to be whipped every day for two weeks and so ‘cured of her insolence to her superiors’. In the same paper one David Ward announced that his wife had ‘eloped’ with one Henry Spelt, and taken all of the household money with her. Mr Ward ‘will not be responsible for his wife’s debt’s but it would be ‘all injuries forgiven’ if she returned.

In a 1776 Oxford Journal we read that Mr Bell, a journeyman watchmaker, was convicted for impersonating a clergyman. ‘In his clerical character he preached in Edmonton, Southgate, Enfield, Tottenham…’ and ‘married, christened and buried the dead.’

The word ‘strumpet’ was in frequent use. A 1764 Derby Mercury reported a ‘common strumpet’ decoying a victim into a field where a gang held him down and robbed him. A 1775 edition writes of a man being accosted by one Sarah Lowe, who asked him: ‘Will you give me a glass of wine?’ He replied: ‘Go along, you strumpet. I’ll have nothing to do with you.’ Sarah and a gang of accomplices then violently robbed him.

At home and abroad
Foreign affairs were reported assiduously, including the American War of Independence. The same issue of the Mercury printed an address given by ‘His Excellency Geo[orge] Washington, Generalissimo of all the forces of the confederated colonies of America.’ A 1750 Aberdeen Press and Journal wrote about South Carolina where ‘Creek Indians have lately burnt to the ground two towns of the Cherokees, killed most of the inhabitants on the spot, and carried the rest into slavery.’ There were numerous reports of the horrors of the French Revolution. A 1793 Ipswich Journal offers: ‘Female citizen Olympia Gouges was guillotined notwithstanding her pleading pregnancy’, and a 1793 Saunders’s News Letter informs us that the actors of a Bordeaux Theatre suffered a similar fate, having been arrested as aristocrats.

At home, the theatre news was about performances. A 1779 Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser, praised a production of Sheridan’s School for Scandal (first performed two years previously): ‘Performed in London with universal applause and with much greater success than any piece met with on the stage.’ The Chelmsford Chronicle in 1778 publicised a comedy, The West Indian, a comic opera, The Waterman, and a tragedy, The Fair Penitent. In the 1780s newspapers all over the country waxed lyrical about Signor Scaglioni’s dancing dogs, whose tricks incorporated fireworks and parachutes. Such unconventional entertainments were commonplace. A 1792 Caledonian Mercury announced that Mr Cartwright was to perform ‘on his celebrated musical glasses, and to exhibit his philosophical fireworks in Dundee’. The same paper in 1724 tells us of a masquerade ball in the Haymarket, with gentlemen assuming ‘the shapes and countenances of monkeys and baboons, others of bears, cormorants and owls’. The ladies appeared as ‘apes, bears and dromedaries’.

Not all entertainments were peaceful. The Ipswich Journal tells us of a 1735 disturbance at the Haymarket Opera House. Some footmen ‘who gave offence to the ladies’ refused to leave, and fought it out with guards armed with bayonets.

Read Paul’s article about the London Livery Companies in our new print edition, Issue 9, available now – see discoveryourancestors.co.uk .