Croydon Newspapers

[jibba]

I'm looking for old newspaper articles in the Croydon area to find out the circumstances of the death of Benjamin Ellis, who died on Croydon Common on 9 April 1838 aged 45/46. Time of death was at 7pm. Cause of death was a ruptured blood vessel.

I'm trying to find out if this was a natural death or something more sinister. Can anyone point me in the right direction please?

[meles]

I think the Croydon Advertiser has been going for donkey's years. I Googled it, and found it is still going strong.

meles

[jibba]

Indeed it has, but after looking around, it turns out that the Advertiser started in 1869

[Mean_genie]

Local newspapers were rather thin on the ground for the date you are interested in, because they were still heavily taxed and regulated, which made them expensive and uneconomic to produce. Where they did exist, they contained relatively little local news.

The various sections of the NEWSPLAN site are very useful for finding out what papers were existence for particular places and periods

http://www.newsplan.co.uk/laser_newsplan/modules.php?name=home

I did a quick search for Croydon 1838 and found nothing, but a bit more exploration might come up with something

Good luck anyway

Mean_genie

[FIFI]

Have you tried to contact Croydon Local archives, as I had a death in Norwood in 1855 and they have all newspapers on film even the ones before The Advertiser. Although newspapers going back that far only seem to be very restricted on what they report but it's worth a try.

[Valda]

Hi

The date for local newspapers flourishing was 1855 when the tax on paper was abolished.

https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/England_Newspapers

The earliest Croydon local newspaper appears to be the The Croydon Chronicle and East Surrey Advertiser which started in 1855.

If you put Croydon into the British Library newspaper search engine you get a list of all the newspapers they hold and the dates of publishing.

http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b&local_base=NPL

Other than the shortly lived Crystal Palace Gazette; and Sydenham, Norwood, & Croydon Advertiser which published 2 editions in 1853 and the Surrey Mercury; Guildford, Kingston, Epsom, Dorking, Croydon, Reigate, Farnham & Chertsey Agricultural Journal (which would have concentrated on farming matters) 1845-1847 the only other newspapers would have been at county level and not even one county level.

The County chronicle, and weekly advertiser, for Essex, Herts, Kent, Surrey, Middlesex 1780-1841
Brighton Herald; or, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire & Kent Advertiser 1806-1902


Regards

Valda

[jorose]

Who was the informant on the certificate?

[jibba]

Hi

The informant was his wife, Sarah Ellis. Beside her name and the familiar 'X', nothing else is written

[Valda]

Hi

If the death was not considered natural there would have been an inquest and the informant would have been the Coroner.


Regards

Valda