Newspaper transcriptions

I have taken advantage of an opportunity to access a free trial of the Gale Digital Collections, which includes a large collection of digitised British newspapers from the 16th to the 19th century. The digital newspaper archive is a brilliant resource but sadly access in the UK is restricted to institutes of higher education. I hope that funds will eventually be made available to make this important resource accessible to the general public, though the response from my local library was not very encouraging.

I have now downloaded a large collection of newspaper articles from the collection and am slowly updating my records. I have transcribed some of the more interesting Devon-related articles for the pages of Genuki Devon. There is an interesting story about a "supernatural piggery" which was found at Cruwys Morchard in 1789 which is now included in a selection of newspaper extracts on the Cruwys Morchard page. I have also transcribed accounts of four Cruwys Morchard ploughing matches from the 1860s. The final contribution is an account of a fire at George Cruwys's house in Witheridge.

I have saved some of the most interesting accounts for last, so watch this space if you want to find out about the Cruse who was sent to prison for five years in 1868 and the Cruwys who was executed in 1778!