A NEW online service from the British Library is to allow readers to access historic newspapers – including The Northern Echo – dating back 200 years.

The service includes more than two million pages of newspapers between 1800 and 1900, from 49 national and regional titles.

Chosen by leading experts and academics to present a cross-section of 19th Century society, the website at newspapers.bl.uk/blcs allows users to delve into national newspapers such as the Daily News, English regional papers, for example the Echo and the Manchester Times, newspapers from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, weekly titles such as Penny Illustrated Paper and Graphic and other specialist titles.

The gory details of the Whitechapel murders committed by Jack the Ripper and the banking collapse of 1878 are just a few of millions of news items included in the archive.

For readers of the Echo, significant events covered by the paper in its formative years and now available to view online include the 50th anniversary of the opening of the world’s first steam passenger railway, the Darlington to Stockton railway, in 1875, and the Tay Bridge disaster, in Scotland, five years later.

The paper also covered the famous Battle of Rorke’s Drift in 1879, in which a small band of British soldiers successfully repelled thousands of Zulu warriors, and, closer to home, Bishop Auckland’s feat in winning the FA Amateur Cup in 1896.

Simon Bell, from the British Library, said: ‘‘The new pay-as-you-go service will enable users across the UK who don’t wish to travel to our reading rooms in London or Yorkshire to delve into this unrivalled online resource.’’ Searches of the site are free and downloads of full-text articles are available by purchasing either a 24-hour or seven-day pass.