Over 12 million pages from over 200 UK newspapers are now available on Newspapers.com.
The collection includes back issues of the Daily Mirror and local newspapers such as the Manchester Evening News, Birmingham Mail and Kent & Sussex Courier.
Owned by Ancestry, Newspapers.com is a major resource for old newspapers, with over 736 million pages.
It has previously mainly held US newspapers.
To view the UK newspapers, you will need a Publisher Extra subscription to the website, which currently costs £49.99 for six months or £14.99 for one month.
To celebrate Women’s History Month, Newspapers.com highlighted many of the articles in the newspapers that shed light on women’s history in the UK.
An article from the Hull Daily Mail on 29 November 1919 reports on the election of Lady Nancy Astor, who was the first woman MP to be seated in the House of Commons.
In 1918, the Representation of the People Act was passed, allowing some women to vote in national elections for the first time. This was followed by the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act, which allowed women to be elected to Parliament.
The following year, Lady Astor won the Plymouth Sutton by-election, becoming the MP for a seat previously occupied by her husband.
The Hull Daily Mail reporter describes the results of the by-election and notes that he asked Lady Astor “how she proposes to dress for her new duties”.
The Hull Daily Mail reporter notes that he asked Lady Astor 'how she intended to dress for her new duties'
She replied: “I shall always dress plainly, and in a manner which will be easy to follow by future women members who may have to live on the official £400 a year.
“I believe the Speaker has decided that I may keep my hat on all the time.”
Another article, from the Pall Mall Gazette and dated 8 February 1895, is by Lady Florence Dixie, President of the British Ladies’ Football Club, and defends the right of women to play football.
Lady Dixie, also focused on women’s clothes, writes: “There is no reason why football should not be played by women, and played well, too, provided they dress rationally and relegate to limbo the straight-jacket attire in which fashion delights to clothe them.
“For, for women to attempt any kind of free movement in fashion’s dress means the making of themselves ridiculous, even as men would so make themselves did they play cricket or football arrayed in skirts and their attendant flummeries.”
Rosemary Collins is the staff writer of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
