Read all about it! Brentford in
the 19th-century newspapers.
The British Library has completed the digitisation of 19th-century British Newspapers and they now can be accessed by the public through the internet. The service from the British Library website is British Newspapers 1800-1900.
It is free to search the database of two million pages from 49 national and local newspapers but a subscription charge is made to access the detailed articles. You can view complete articles from the Penny Illustrated Paper and The Graphic free of charge.
I accessed these newspapers, free of charge from Richmond Library Online Reference Services using my Borrowing Number, through the Internet on my own computer.
I had a quick look around these newspapers for any articles on some of the topics we have covered on our Brentford Dock website and found the following, which you can use the dates and title to access the detailed article.
1. Brentford Dock Opens - July 15th, 1859
Great Western and Brentford Railway and Dock Company
Daily News
Monday, July 18, 1859; Issue 4111. (2013 words)
A report on the opening ceremony of the opening of Brentford Dock and the branch railway line. It says the Dock occupies 13 acres of land and covers 4.5 acres of water, having a depth of 13 or 14 feet at high water.
2. Lady Bulwer Lytton forced into Dr Hill’s Lunatic Asylum in Brentford - July 15th 1858
EXTRAORDINARY PROCEEDINGS - Lady Bulwer Lytton in a lunatic asylum
The Morning Chronicle
Thursday, July 15, 1858; Issue 28568
The article appeals to the Freemasons of England to help a Freemason’s daughter, Lady Bulwer Lytton, who was wrongly incarcerated in a lunatic asylum in Brentford (which is now the Inverness Club on Boston Manor Rd, next to the library) by her husband Sir Edward, a friend of Charles Dickens.
We wrote about the Bulwer-Lytton scandal in our article Charles Dickens curious connections with Brentford.
3. Wife of Richard Carrington, astronomer and owner of Brentford Brewery, in murder attempt - August, 1871
THE "DEVIL'S JUMPS" TRAGEDY
Penny Illustrated Paper
Saturday, September 09, 1871; pg. 150; Issue 519
This is a story about the young wife of Richard Carrington being attacked by her former lover. He was the owner of Brentford Brewery and an astronomer, who first observed Solar Flares and is thought of as the father of modern solar astronomy.
We wrote about Richard Carrington in our articles Observing the Heavens from Brentford and Local Brewery Owner in 1859 accelerated an explanation for changes in climate.
4. A New Brentford Bridge, August 1824
BRENTFORD BRIDGE
The Morning Post
Tuesday, September 07, 1824; Issue 16760.
This is a report on the laying of the first stones for a replacement Brentford Bridge in 1824.
5. The Brentford Flood January 16-17th 1841
On a Saturday evening January 16th 1841 there was a great flood in Brentford due to heavy rain and ice thawing. The banks of the River Brent and the canal lock gates burst, causing the death of ten people, with the loss of boats and property damaged. Later it was discovered that the Brent Reservoir had become overfull, so that the overflow cut a breach in the earth dam.
There are dramatic accounts of this inundation and the aftermath, in the newspapers of the time, which you can read online in the 19th Century British Library Newspapers, using key words of ‘Brentford inundation’ example articles are:
a) INUNDATION at BRENTFORD, LOSS of LIFE, and DESTRUCTION of PROPERTY
The Morning Chronicle, Monday, January 18, 1841; Issue 22198.
“A most fearful inundation occurred in the town of Brentford, occassioned by the bursting of the banks and locks on the Grand Junction Canal, which had been attended by the destruction of great property, the carrying away of many house by the stream, as well as the loss of life...”
b) And the following day...
THE INUNDATION AT BRENTFORD.
The Morning Chronicle, Tuesday, January 19, 1841; Issue 22199.
“..the Infant School rooms in the Butts were on Sunday evening prepared by order of Rev. Dr. Stoddart for the reception of distressed boatmen and ninety men, women and children presented themselves..”
“..The escape of the 21 men, women and children from off the passage boats, as they passed the wall of the Duke of Northumberland’s grounds, was almost miraculous. The first that got over was a boy named John Jones, who instantly fastened a rope to a tree, by which means the others got over. As they did they felt the wall tottering under them, and while the last boy was on it, it was overthrown by the water; he providentially fell within the grounds. Immediately on being discovered by his grace’s gardener, they received both shelter and succour.”
“..Mr Charles Morris, a market gardener at Old Brentford, had been missing and in the course of the afternoon all doubt on the subject was removed, by the discovery of the body near his residence, in a stream communicating with the Brent...”
Flood!: The Brentford Flood of 1841, Valerie Bott, Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society (2002)
It won’t be long before we are all reading the news through tablets such as the iPad and the newspapers will be a thing of the past.
