Illustrated London News, First World War archives, searchable online.

[Illustrated London News]

www.illustratedfirstworldwar.com

With the centenary of the First World War upon us, ILN Ltd, the custodians of the celebrated Illustrated London News and Great Eight Illustrated Magazine collection archives, felt a responsibility to make the 1914-18 archives available to the public for research, education and pleasure. With the help of a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, www.illustratedfirstworldwar.com was created. Now, for the fist time in 100 years, the public are invited to search the First World War pages of The Illustrated London News.

In the coming months

The Illustrated War News and the wartime years of The Sphere, The Sketch, The Tatler, The Bystander, The Graphic and The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News will come online to complete this unique digital collection covering the First World War. To enhance the user experience, we will be adding new functionality, including advanced search functions. Should there be a demand, our teaching pages will also develop over time.

There will also be improvements to the “user generated content” functions and it is our hope and intention that users will add depth and interest to the archives by adding their 21st-century perspectives and by opening conversations with like-minded users via the comments boxes below the archive pages.

Whether your interest is the extraordinary frontline illustrations of Fortunino Matania, the famous cartoons of Bruce Bairnsfather, or finding a relative in one of the rolls of honours, there’s something for everyone to search and discover.

[Guest]

Thank you. Looks very useful.

Finding it a bit slow at the moment.

Mike

[Illustrated London News]

Thanks Mike - we will ensure that is loads quicker in the next few weeks

Andrew

[Guest]

Excellent.

Mike

[Coldstreamer]

fantastic site - my avatar has another picture now

and a search engine that works - you are to congratulated on that alone

cheers

[Guest]

Very nice. Must have taken a lot of hard work. We are all richer for it. Thanks.

It might be useful to have the artist's pages linked to their work. Matania's page is interesting and it would be really useful to be able to navigate directly to his work from that page. Merely a suggestion, not a criticism. MG

[Moonraker]

Very useful. Saves leafing through heavy bound volumes of the originals! Good search engine, worked fast enough for me. Thanks.

Moonraker

[archangel9]

Great resource. Not complaining but it would be even better if the date of the publication could be included in the search results.

Thanks very much.

John

[bmac]

Excellent. Great resource. Thanks for making the effort.

[David_Blanchard]

Very impressive . Congratulations to all involved.

[anthony osborne]

Great news. Thanks for the heads up.

Ant

[Illustrated London News]

Thanks all for your feedback, this will help us improve the site in phase 2.

It might be useful to have the artist's pages linked to their work. Matania's page is interesting and it would be really useful to be able to navigate directly to his work from that page. Merely a suggestion, not a criticism. MG

Martin G - regarding artist links, if you view some of the Illustrated London News war artist you will see links at the bottom of the page to a few of their works. As the remaining publications are digitised and come on-line those artists will also have links to archived works. Matania did most of his work in The Sphere, so hold fire and his links will be made available.

Please tell friends and colleagues - and if you are a tweeter, we are @ILN tweet. Your help in spreading the word is appreciated.

In the mean time keep the feedback coming.

Regards Andrew

[tharkin56]

i have been using this to search for photos and search is very accurate, is there a way of going from issue to issue. i.e going through each issue

[Charles Fair]

Excellent site, thank you. I was thrilled to discover more about the silhouettist Harry Oakley who appears in my book as a minor character and footnote. He served alongside my grandmother's fiancée, Capt Francis Dodgson, in 8th Bn Yorkshire Regiment. Dodson refers to Oakley a few times in his letters. I reproduced one of Oakley's pages from The Bystander in my book as Dodgson referred to that specific piece in one of the letters.

Tweet sent.

Charles

[bcarleton]

Very nice. Can't wait to see more. Love the art work.

[John Gilinsky]

A Canuck colonial footnote: PRE-1995 - I remember photographing (for research purposes only of course!) much of the ILN, The Graphic, The Sphere,etc... here in Toronto, Canada. NOW of course I can search for the stuff 24/7, download, print off, etc..... So MUCH quicker and presumably accurate. I still have tons of research notes taken from these including pre-1914 stuff and post-1920 materials. THANK you ILN Library and staff for doing this. I and I know many people around the world not just in Great Britain are very very appreciative of your community outreach! Tanks again,

John Gilinsky

Toronto

[tharkin56]

HI

when are the other magazine coming on line Tatler etc

Thanks

[German IR 169]

This is a great product, I appreciate the efforts that went into making this available. John

[tharkin56]

JOhn post 16. I don't think the graphic/sphere are loaded yet. could be wrong but had no reply reference post 17

[John Gilinsky]

You are probably right. I think in the sense of timing and making it partially available something rather than everything guided the online production. Still a commitment has been made. I think everyone presumes that everything is online, furthermore that whatever online is COMPLETE which ironically given the presumed average age of GWF members we should all know better! John