The Burney Collection consists of over 1,270 17th-18th century newspapers and other news materials, gathered by Charles Burney

Charles Burney (scholar)

Charles Burney, Junior FRS, DD was an English classical scholar, schoolmaster and clergyman.-Family and education:...

, most notable for the 18th-century London newspapers. The original collection, totalling almost 1 million pages, is held by the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

.

Highlights

Key objects in the collection include:

• The financial scandal of the 1720s, the South Sea bubble, with reports in the Weekly Journal or Saturday’s Post of how Parliament decided that if they left the country, the directors of the South Sea company "shall suffer death as a felon without benefit of clergy and forfeit to the King all his Lands, Goods and Chattels whatsoever."
• First advertisement for The Memoirs of Fanny Hill in the Whitehall Evening Post
  Whitehall Evening Post
  The Whitehall Evening Post was a London newspaper, founded in 1718.It was started in September 1718 by Daniel Defoe; and was then published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Defoe left it in June 1720, but it continued to exist until the end of the century. It closed in 1801, with issue...
  
  , 6 March 1750, and then, in the issue of 17 March, a report of how the publisher was taken into custody and all copies were seized.
• Insight into English attitudes to contemporary events, such as when the English Chronicle or Universal Evening Post used the unusual device of a headline – FRENCH REVOLUTION!! – for a whole page article on 18 of July 1789. It reported sympathetically on the fall of the Bastille four days earlier, including how the officers were decapitated in ‘a sad but necessary spectacle...a solemnity worthy of the highest admiration.’

Summary

The collection begins with Parliamentary papers from 1603, and newspapers from the early 1620s. 18th-century London newspapers are the richest part of the collection.

The following is an incomplete list of titles covering some of the most popular.

• Parliamentary papers from 1603
• London Newspapers
  • The Daily Courant
    Daily Courant
    The Daily Courant was reputed to be the world's first regular daily newspaper, commencing in 1702 from premises in Fleet Street.It was first published on 11 March 1702 by Elizabeth Mallet from her premises "against the Ditch at Fleet Bridge". However, as people were not ready at the time to know...
    
     ** (1702-1735), the first daily newspaper published in London
  • The London Gazette
    London Gazette
    The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published...
    
     ** from 1665
  • London Chronicle
    London Chronicle
    The London Chronicle was an early family newspaper of Georgian London. It appeared three times a week and contained world and national news, and coverage of artistic, literary, and theatrical events in the capital....
    
     **
  • London Evening Post
    London Evening Post
    The London Evening Post was a pro-Jacobite Tory English newspaper published in Great Britain from 1727 until 1797....
    
     **
  • Evening Post
    Evening Post (London)
    The Evening Post was a London newspaper published from 1710 until February 1732, not to be confused with the London Evening Post.The paper was printed by E. Berington in Silver Street Bloomsbury and sold by John Morphew near Stationers-Hall....
    
     **
  • Daily Post **
  • Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser
    Morning Chronicle
    The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in...
    
     **
• National papers
  • The Era
    The Era (newspaper)
    The Era was a British weekly paper, published from 1838 to 1939. Originally a general newspaper, it became noted for its sports coverage, and later for its theatrical content.-History:...
    
    
• Periodicals
  • 'Tatler
    Tatler
    Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
    
    ' (1709-1711)
  • 'Spectator
    The Spectator (1711)
    The Spectator was a daily publication of 1711–12, founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England after they met at Charterhouse School. Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison's, also contributed to the publication. Each 'paper', or 'number', was approximately 2,500 words long, and the...
    
    ' (1711-1712)
• English provincial titles from 1712
  • The Stamford Mercury
    Stamford Mercury
    The Stamford Mercury based in Stamford, Lincolnshire claims to be "Britain's oldest newspaper". Berrow's Worcester Journal and London Gazette also claim this honour...
    
     of 1728,
  • The Leeds Mercury
    Leeds Mercury
    The Leeds Mercury was a newspaper in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was published from 1718 to 1755 and again from 1767. Initially it consisted of 12 pages and cost three halfpennies. In 1794 it had a circulation of about 3,000 copies, and in 1797 the cost rose to sixpence because of increased...
    
     **
  • The Exeter Flying Post
    Trewman's Exeter Flying Post
    Trewman's Exeter Flying Post was a weekly newspaper published in Exeter between 1763 and 1917.Robert Trewman and William Andrews quarrelled with Andrew Brice, printer of the Exeter Journal, and left him to establish the Exeter Mercury or West Country Advertiser: after several changes of title, the...
    
     **
• Irish newspapers from 1691
  • The Dublin Intelligence of 1691
  • The Belfast News–Letter
    The News Letter
    The News Letter is one of Northern Ireland's main daily newspapers, published Monday to Saturday. It is the oldest English language general daily newspaper still in publication in the world, having first been printed in 1737....
    
     **
• Scottish newspapers from 1708
  • The Aberdeen Journal **
  • The Caledonian Mercury
    Caledonian Mercury
    Caledonian Mercury was the name of a Scottish newspaper, published three times a week between 1720-1867. Numbers published from 1800 on are available online for registered users of the National Library of Scotland website....
    
     **
  • The Echo or Edinburgh Weekly Journal **
• Many 18th-century American newspapers, including:
  • The New England Courant (1721-1723), on which Benjamin Franklin
    Benjamin Franklin
    Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
    
     worked
• (unsorted in this list)
  • British Journal
    British Journal
    The British Journal was an English newspaper published from 22 September 1722 until 13 January 1728. The paper was then published as the British Journal or The Censor from 20 January 1728 until 23 November 1730 and then as the British Journal or The Traveller from 30 November 1730 until 20 March...
    
     **
  • Daily Gazetteer
    Daily Gazetteer
    The Daily Gazetteer was an English newspaper which was published from June 30, 1735-1746. The paper was printed for T. Cooper, at the Globe in Pater-Noster Row, London by W...
    
     **
  • General Advertiser **
  • Lloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle **
  • Lounger **
  • Mirror
    Mirror
    A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...
    
     **
  • St James' Chronicle or British Evening Post **
  • Whitehall Evening Post
    Whitehall Evening Post
    The Whitehall Evening Post was a London newspaper, founded in 1718.It was started in September 1718 by Daniel Defoe; and was then published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Defoe left it in June 1720, but it continued to exist until the end of the century. It closed in 1801, with issue...
    
     or London Intelligencer **
  • Daily News
    Daily News
    Daily News or The Daily News is the name of several daily newspapers around the world, including:- Australia :* Daily News - United Kingdom :...
    
    
  • Morning Chronicle
    Morning Chronicle
    The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in...
    
    
  • Illustrated Police News
  • The Chartist

• • These items are available as part of the online collection.

Microfilm

Due to rapid deterioration of the collection, a decision was made to microfilm the collection and restrict access to physical copies. The success of the microfilm project led to many other book collections being preserved on film.

Access to the collection

• The Joint Information Systems Committee
  Joint Information Systems Committee
  JISC is a United Kingdom non-departmental public body whose role is to support post-16 and higher education and research by providing leadership in the use of ICT in learning, teaching, research and administration...
  
   provides free online access to the collection for all UK Further and Higher Education institutions.

See also

• JISC Digitisation Programme
  JISC Digitisation Programme
  The JISC Digitisation Programme is a series of projects to digitise the cultural heritage and scholarly materials in universities, libraries, museums, archives and others cultural memory organisations in the United Kingdom. The programme continues to be managed by the UK's Joint Information Systems...
  
  
• List of online newspaper archives
• List of newspapers in the United Kingdom
• History of British newspapers
  History of British newspapers
  During the 17th century, there were many kinds of publications, that told both news and rumours. Among these were pamphlets, posters, ballads etc. Even when the news periodicals emerged, many of these co-existed with them. A news periodical differs from these mainly because of its periodicity...
  
  

External links

• http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/news/newspdigproj/burney/index.html
• http://www.nls.uk/collections/digital/resources/burney.html
• http://microformguides.gale.com/BrowseGuide.asp?colldocid=1003000&Page=23&Item=
• http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/webres/newspaperliblinks/index.html
• http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/newspapers2.aspx