Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection: Part II

│By Clem Delany, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

In December 2024, Gale Primary Sources released part two of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection, sourced from the British Library. Adding to the original, previously digitised collection of Reverend Charles Burney are an additional 200-odd titles of newspapers, newsbooks, and broadsheets from across the period.

Unlike the collection in Part I, the Burney Additional Newspapers collection of Part II is not derived from a single source but was gathered over time by the British Museum Library, and later the British Library. It remained uncatalogued for some time, and is comparatively less well-known than the collection in Part I. The issues digitised here have survived several hundred years of fire, bombing, and even war-time paper salvage schemes.

Almost miraculously, the digitised Burney Newspapers Collection now includes over a million pages from this period to comb through, with Part II adding nearly 8000 additional issues and the voices of countless contributors.

Regulation and Control

A brief overview of the print landscape of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would have to include many attempts by the Crown or the government to regulate publications: Licensing Orders in the 1640s and 1650s, the Printing Act of 1662, the role of the Stationers’ Company in recording and enforcing licenses, renewals of the lapsed Act in 1685 and 1693, and the proliferation of print when it finally ceased in 1695.

The Printing Act was succeeded by Stamp Acts in 1712 and 1725, seeking to control newspapers through taxation of the printers who were often also the editors and reporters. Libel law developed through almost continual trials for seditious libel throughout the period, with many printers going in and out of Newgate. These factors are important in reading the documents in the Burney Newspapers Collection as historical sources, and in reminding us of the social context and limits of the printed page.

We can use the booming landscape of print in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to explore a lot about everyday life and its social norms and attitudes, or wider themes like politics, religion, trade, class and gender.

Each issue in the Additional Burney Newspapers collection that makes up the majority of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection Part II gives us a unique perspective, addressing and appealing to a specific audience and often advancing a certain narrative or point of view. The below examples are intended both to demonstrate different perspectives, and to illustrate the growing conversation around libel, censorship, and freedom of the press – what was said, and what was not.

A Nation Divided

The divisions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries cast our current political scene into the shade; Civil War, Revolution, riots, conspiracies, and plots. The newsbooks, courants, broadsheets and, ultimately, newspapers that circulated at the time allow valuable insight across the political and religious spectrum. In these turbulent times the social groups to which you belonged, or were alleged to belong, could be a matter of life and death.

One major ideological division was the hostility between Protestants, particularly Anglicans, and Catholics, which arguably peaked in the hysterical panic around the ‘Popish Plot’ of 1678, when Titus Oates & Israel Tonge produced claims of a Jesuit conspiracy to kill the king, a fabrication which ultimately led to the execution of at least 35 innocent men.

Part II expands the coverage of this period, with increased runs of periodicals including the Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, an anti-government, anti-Catholic title published by Henry Care in the early 1680s. Care was tried and found guilty of libel based on material from the publication.

Also skirting the rocky shores of treason were Catholic printers such as Nathaniel Thompson, whose titles included The Domestick Intelligence from 1679, where he repeatedly cast doubt on the Popish Plot whilst aligning himself with the Tory government. Thompson, like Care, was also tried for libel.

Proceedings in Parliament

During the seventeenth century, many titles can be found reporting on parliamentary proceedings, for example:

• Perfect Diurnall of Some Passages in Parliament (1643)
• Perfect Diurnal or the Daily Proceedings in Parliament
• Perfect Summary of Exact Passages in Parliament
• Weekly Accompt of Certain Special and Remarkable Passages from Both Houses of Parliament
• Perfect Occurrences of Every Dayes Journall in Parliament
• Perfect Occurrences of the Most Remarkable Passages in Parliament
• Perfect Passages of Each Dayes Proceedings in Parliament
• Tuesdaies Journall of Perfect Passages in Parliament

However, by 1700, these were amongst the things that were prohibited from appearing in print. That there was a market for such reports is demonstrated both by the earlier publications, and in the number of printers who circumvented the ban on printing and distributed handwritten versions of the proceedings. These included William Woodfall, editor of the Morning Chronicle from 1769 to 1789, and afterwards of The Diary or Woodfall’s Register.

Woodfall did not, however, stop at handwritten reports. Those witnessing parliamentary debates were not allowed to take notes. Woodfall, who was known for his excellent memory, attended debates and afterwards wrote detailed reports of what was said for publication by himself or others. He was arrested in 1779, not for this activity, but for a leaflet in support of Admiral Keppel and sentenced to twelve months in Newgate Prison for libel.

As this article from Woodfall’s own newspaper illustrates, concepts of freedom of the press were already being discussed by the eighteenth century.

Published by Authority

Official channels were also swift to establish their own publications such as The London Gazette, ‘published by authority’. This newspaper initially appeared as The Oxford Gazette in 1665, the court of Charles II having fled to Oxford to avoid plague in London, and changed to The London Gazette from February 1666 on their return.

The Hue and Cry, and Police Gazette, and its variant titles, was another ‘by authority’ publication, established by Sir John Fielding in 1772 as the Quarterly Pursuit. John, with his brother Henry Fielding, established London’s first professional police force, known as the Bow Street Runners.

The Police Gazette reflects his intention of developing a central public office for the prevention of crime, reporting on a wide variety of crimes and punishments around the country, including descriptions of wanted persons and stolen goods, as well as official notices such as War Office lists of deserters.

The Value of Burney

Digitising this second tranche of valuable documents alongside the original collection of Reverend Burney brings a wealth of material for researchers to explore. The thousands of issues found in Part II allow wider ranging studies and broader readings of historical events; users can explore not only the narratives surrounding key events, but the limits of what was said, by whom, and to what audience.

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If you enjoyed reading about newspapers as sources, you may like to read the following posts:

• Using Gale Historical Newspapers to Highlight Marginalised Voices in Journalism
• Using Gale Historical Newspapers to Explore the Representation of Coastal Wrecks
• Launch of British Library Newspapers, Part VI: Ireland 1783-1950

Blog post cover image citation: a collage of newspaper titles mentioned in this blog post.