Читать книгу Collins Tracing Your Irish Family History - Ryan Tubridy, Anthony Adolph - Страница 49

Newspapers started in 17th-century London and became widespread on a local level in the 19th century. Local papers are best sought in local archives where they are sometimes indexed. The best collection of local, national and foreign papers, including Catholic ones, is at the British Library Newspaper Library, catalogued at www.bl.uk/collections/newspapers.html. Announcements concerning everything from medal recipients to bankrupts appear in the London Gazette (1665-present), Gentleman’s Magazine (1731–1868) and The Times (1785-present), the latter indexed in The Times Digital Archive, available in several good libraries including Guildhall Library, London.

Catholics newspapers include The Tablet (1840) and The Universe (1860). In addition, James Peter Coghlan (1732–1800), a London printer, filched The Laity’s Directory publishing title from its founder, James Marmaduke, in 1760. Coghlan, who was Lancashire-born but clearly of Irish origin, maintained this vital organ of English Catholic life throughout the time of the Gordon Riots (1780), and when he died he left it to his wife’s nephew and employee Richard Charles Brown (1776–1837), brother of the first Catholic bishop of Liverpool. Brown, my 4 x great-grandfather, ran it in partnership with Patrick Keating, styling themselves ‘Brown & Keating, printers to the R.R. the Vicars Apostolic’. They continued The Laity’s Directory until his death, and Brown’s widow Jane (née Hemsworth) took it on for a few years. She gave up in the face of the rival Catholic Directory, that continues to this day. These publications list many births, deaths and marriages for Catholics in England, including many of Irish origin.