Christmas Cards: “A great new ‘social evil’”

The first commercial Christmas card was posted in 1843, and most of us enjoy the tradition of receiving seasonal greetings from friends and family. However this letter from the archive, dated December 28, 1877, tells another story.

The war club, the tooth and The Times

Did you know that in 1930 the letters page of The Times played a crucial role in the campaign to return King Thakombau’s war club to Fiji to become the ceremonial mace of the country’s House of Representatives?

Tiger, the prize winning office cat of The Times

Among the many silver cups in our archives is a…

When the Clocks stopped at Printing House Square

The sirens sounded around Printing House Square, the home of The Times, at 8.22 pm on the evening of Tuesday, September 24, 1940. The paper’s Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) officers in the Control Room were later to testify that as the evening…

The day the Queen visited The Times

On February 28, 1985 the Queen visited The Times accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh. As a matter of fact, the Queen visited The Times twice that day.

155 years of official weather reporting in The Times

Weather Reports

Peterloo Massacre

In the depression following the Napoleonic War, the mood of the country was for reform. Thomas Barnes, the recently appointed editor of The Times, deployed reporters across the country to report on local feeling and to cover the political meetings taking place.

Biography of John Walter II

John Walter II was born on February 23, 1776, the second son of John Walter I, the founder of The Times, and Frances Walter. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and Trinity College, Oxford, which he entered in 1795 apparently destined for holy orders. However, in 1797 his…

The Times’ Greatest Scoop

In June 1878 representatives of Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Serbia, Romania and Montenegro, gathered in Berlin for a congress to determine the boundaries of the states in the Balkan peninsula following the Russo-Turkish…