Burney Collection - Research 17th and 18th Century Britain

Christchurch City Libraries are now able to offer the Burney Newspapers collection from the British Library online. The newspapers, pamphlets and books collected by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) represent the largest and most comprehensive collection of early English news media. Now in digitised form almost 1 million pages and 1,270 titles are fully text-searchable.

The Burney collection includes Newspapers, newsbooks, Acts of Parliament, addresses, broadsides, pamphlets, proclamations and has titles from London, English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, as well as a few examples from the American colonies, Europe and India.  The newspapers are a fantastic primary resource for students and  researchers and for the ordinary reader they provide a fascinating glimpse into the lives many of our ancestors lived. The newspapers have much information about individuals of all ranks of society, not only in the form of notices of births, marriages and deaths but through mentions of legal, business, cultural and many other activities.

Family historians may like to search on the names of family members. Searching can be limited by date and any successful hits are highlighted in the text of the newspaper which is a great help when viewing antique typefaces. Newspaper images can be magnified for easier reading or reduced for on screen navigation. You can save and print article images, create persistent links and email them to others.

Charles Burney was the son of the music historian Dr Charles Burney and the brother of the writer Frances (Fanny) Burney. He became a schoolmaster and was a noted classical scholar. His collection of rare books and manuscripts was bought by the nation for the British Museum in 1817. He also had a brother, James, who sailed with James Cook on two voyages including the final voyage where he witnessed the death of Captain Cook.

The Burney Collection is part of our extensive collection of online databases which you can access from home with your library card number and PIN, or at our libraries.