Primary sources: news sources and official publications

Primary sources will provide you with the raw material to analyse and interpret the topic you are researching.

On this page newspaper, journal archives and newsreels are followed by collections of official publications.

Additional archives and e-resources are listed on the Primary sources: archive collections page.

UK newspapers

  • Gale Primary Sources includes the following titles:
    • British Library Newspapers
    • Daily Mail Historical Archive
    • Financial Times Historical Archive
    • Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers
    • Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals
    • Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938-1957
    • Punch Historical Archive, 1841-1992
    • Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Burney Newspapers Collection
    • The Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2015
    • The Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003
    • The Independent Historical Archive
    • The Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991
    • The Sunday Times Historical Archive
    • The Times Digital Archive
    • The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive
  • UK Press Online: 3 million pages of 19th – 21st century newspapers
  • British Periodicals, 1681-1939
  • Guardian & Observer Archive, 1791-2003
  • Eighteenth Century Journals Portal: newspapers and periodicals covering the period 1685-1835, covering all aspects of 18th-century social, political, and literary life
  • Newsplan London and the South East: bibliographical records and locations of local newspaper titles, dating from 1717 onwards
  • Nexis online contains full text UK newspaper articles as well as other news sources with worldwide coverage
  • British Library Newspapers is available for free to those with a Kent County Council library card and covers the years 1800-1950. Kent County Council also provide a number of local newspaper archives through the British Newspaper Archive.

US and international newspapers

Newsreels and historical footage

  • British Pathé news archive: includes over 85,000 clips of historical footage from around the globe covering the period 1896-1976
  • News on Screen: a database of British newsreels from 1910 to 1983, with over 180,000 records and a large collection of digitised documents

Magazine and journal archives

  • LGBT Magazine Archive: covers major periodicals devoted to LGBT+ interests from the 1950s onwards.
  • Vogue Archive: coverage from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution colour.
  • Women’s Magazine Archive: leading women’s interest consumer magazines, covering the late-19th century to 2005.
  • Scientific American Archive (1845-2005): offers an insight into social and scientific trends from the mid-19th century onwards.
  • Trench Journals and Unit Magazines of the First World War: contains over 1500 rare magazines by and for servicemen and women of all nations during the First World War
  • Service Newspapers of World War Two: Includes publications from many key nations involved in the conflict, such as the US, Canada, New Zealand, India, and the countries of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Both Allied and Axis publications are available, offering a broad view of the war and the experiences of those on its front lines.

Official documentation