More great websites
Any museum collection, specialist archive or regional archive may have details of any in-house or company magazines online. The Merseyside Maritime Museum, for example, has this article about its in-house holdings, illustrated by an image of The Camel Laird Magazine ( bit.ly/ LiverpoolMuseums).
As noted previously, TNA’s Discovery catalogue might be the best place to start your search. It’s also worth searching British Library ( bl.uk) holdings for in- company or trade collections. And the British Newspaper Archive ( britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk), which draws on the British Library’s collections, has some titles that may be useful for research into particular occupations. The Era, for example, was known for its sports and theatrical coverage. There’s also the National Library of Wales’ free newspapers site ( newspapers.library.wales) or Welsh Journals ( journals.library. wales), which provides access to titles relating to Wales published between 1735-2007 (although these are mainly academic, scientific, literary and popular magazines). There’s also the National Library of Scotland’s digital gallery ( digital.nls.uk/gallery).
Woolworths was seen as such a British institution that it often surprises people to learn that the chain began in Pennsylvania. This history of Woolworths ( woolworthsmuseum.co.uk) is far from perfect, but it is full of interesting information, including pages relating to ‘ Working for Woolies in the 1930s’ and the New Bond Staff Magazine (1935-1972).
Other retail industry sites, which often include images and content from in- company titles, include Marks & Spencer archive ( marksintime.marksandspencer.com) and the John Lewis Memory Store ( johnlewis memorystore.org.uk). House of Fraser Archive ( housefraserarchive. ac.uk) has details of company magazines such as In Company and The Harrodian Gazette.
You also sometimes find websites relating to factories or particular engineering firms, such as I Worked at Raleigh ( iworkedatraleigh.com). British Telecom Digital Archives ( bit.ly/ BTarchives) has guides to searchable resources, plus photos, publications and correspondence going back to 1846.
The Modern Records Centre ( bit.ly/ ModernRecords) has useful pages aimed at family historians, plus information relating to unions and occupations. ( Remember some digitised union material held here is available via findmypast.co.uk.) Other trade union websites include the TUC online history ( unionhistory.info) and Trade Union Ancestors ( unionancestors.co.uk), which is useful for figuring out which union an ancestor might have joined.