Paper breathes life into old news

Back editions of the paper are being put online

The entire archive of the Edinburgh-based Scotsman newspaper is to be made available online.

For a fee, users will be able to read back editions of the paper from 1817 up to 1900, with a further set of archives to be added next year.

The Scotsman was first published on 25 January, 1817, and was the brainchild of lawyer William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren.

Their original edition cost 10p which is about £3 in today's money.

David Speirs, director of the archive project, said: "We have a wealth of history within the Scotsman which has been sitting in our archives for over a century so what we wanted to do was open up the books, dust down the Scotsman newspaper and open it to a world wide audience."

You have much more chance of finding what you are looking for if you are given the chance of searching for an hour, a week, or whatever Owen Dudley Edwards Historian

From Tuesday readers will be able to see how the paper covered the major stories in the 19th century.

Details of the Burke and Hare trial can be accessed along with reports on the opening of the Forth Bridge, the Crimean War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Several US and Dutch newspapers have put their archive online, but it is understood that the Scotsman is the first major UK publisher to make the move.

Rather than paying for individual articles, people will be able to buy access passes for periods from 24 hours to a whole year.

Alistair Brown, head of online operations at the Scotsman, said: "Some of these newspapers are very old with some having deteriorated quiet badly, so we have had assistance from Edinburgh Central Library and university library to find the best possible original."

Free use

Searching on the site promises to be easy with the image of the article as it first appeared in the paper being shown.

Historian Owen Dudley Edwards said: "One of the most important thing for a historian to do is not just to read what they are looking for but to read to the left of it and the right of it and all around it.

For a fee users can search the archive

"It enables you to get into your time machine and jump back into the spirit of the time you are talking about.

"Most historical investigation, if it is going to be any good at all, starts with the historian not really knowing what he or she is looking for.

"What they are really hoping to find is gold in the pages of the papers on whatever little clues they have.

"You have much more chance of finding what you are looking for if you are given the chance of searching for an hour, a week, or whatever."

The Scotsman believes there will be a high demand from the education sector and it expects a strong market thanks to the burgeoning business of family history.

The paper is also in conversation with the Scottish Executive about offering the service free to primary schools.

By April next year, the archive will be updated to 1950 and the complete archive put online shortly after that.