The Wexford Herald 28 Feb 1820

[AlexNoodle]

Hi All

This is a bit of a strange one/longshot. In 2016 my husband's father passed away and in his possession were two original copies of The Wexford Herald - one dated Thurs 21 Feb 1820 and one the week later. The first one seems to focus the majority of it's 4 page content on details of the funeral of King George III, the second one only has the first 2 pages intact (one page printed on both sides) then the third and fourth page (again one page printed on both sides) has two sections cut out of it which seem to relate to content from the back page. There is one large chunk which is the majority of the page and one specific part cut out slightly to one side of it above a marriage announcement. The week before has a similar section and this seems to just describe the dates and details relating to the Lent Assizes for the Leinster and North West Circuits - so not entirely sure why that part could have been specifically cut out - the cut out does not seem to relate to the content from the third page as it is in the middle of a longer article on that page.

I have looked online to see if any newspaper archives had these papers available to look at for me to check what the cut out sections refer to, in order to understand whether they had anything in them of significance as to whether my father in law had cut these sections out himself for some reason (did not locate these sections in any of his other possessions) or whether perhaps he just randomly bought these old newspapers and one of them had already had bits removed before he bought them.

Would anyone have any thoughts on whether anywhere may hold copies? I did see that the National Library of Ireland has some but not for this time period. I might not ever find another copy but thought I would reach out to this forum for ideas!

Thanks

Alex

[Wexflyer]

Last time I had a subscription, the online BNA (British Newspaper Archive) did not have coverage back that far. However, as you have discovered, there were Wexford papers back to 1820 and earlier, just not online. I would suggest:
- Checking current BNA coverage, they might have added.
- British Library should have a copy. I don't know if they have a service to check particular editions.

You might wish to donate the two copies you have to the National Library of Ireland.

[AlexNoodle]

Thanks for the suggestions. The BNA do not cover that paper unfortunately.

I will try contacting the British Library to see if they can assist at all.

All the best

Alex

[MollyC]

(You are on the right track.  I had just written this before you posted.)

Have you checked Wexford City and County Libraries? They may hold microfilm obtained from the British Library before the OCR project began.  Findmypast Newspapers and the BNA do not yet list this title but that does not mean the British Library does not hold it.

The BNA is part of the British Library, so it was the "National Library" at the time of publication.  You can make an enquiry directly to see if they hold the issues in question, but there may be a research fee to investigate your query.

[AlexNoodle]

Thanks MollyC I will also contact the local Wexford libraries to see if they hold copies.

Alex

[Wexflyer]

Thanks MollyC I will also contact the local Wexford libraries to see if they hold copies.

Alex

I don't believe they do, but these things keep evolving, so no harm in asking. Let us know, one way or another!

[MollyC]

All I know is that even before 1970 many titles were being microfilmed as a preservation method before OCR was available.  UK libraries acquired films of local papers which were often more complete and in better condition than their own own copies, but also participated in a scheme to microfilm their own current copies and supply those to the BL.  I don't know whether Ireland was able to participate.  However, at least until 1972 the British Copyright Deposit scheme was supplying copies of books to Trinity College Dublin, which was the legally designated library in Ireland to receive them, along with the three national libraries in Great Britain plus Oxford and Cambridge universities.

[Andy J2022]

Just to expand on Molly's reply. Legal deposit did not become a requirement until the Copyright (amendment) Act 1842. So it is quite possible that Trinity College, Dublin will not hold copies of newspapers from 1820.

Between the first Copyright Act of 1710 (the Statute of Anne) and 1842, in order to gain copyright books had to be registered at Stationer's Hall in London. As far as I am aware this did not apply to newspapers simply because the expense was not worth it for something which was intended to have a short life. Newspaper publishers had to be registered with the Postmater General, but individual copies of editions were not deposited. The Company of Stationers transferred its holdings of deposited copies of registered items to the National Archives where they can be found in the series COPY1.

Incidentally TCD is still a legal deposit library for works published in the UK (see section 14 of the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003).

[MollyC]

I thought TCD probably would be, I was not aware there had been any legislation to remove it, so it has survived the partition of Ireland for more than 100 years.  The National Library of Wales was added to the list later (c1911-12?).