In Old Newspapers

[GeordieGirl]

As a Genealogist, I subscribe to various sites for the purpose of research. One of my subscriptions includes British newspapers and just out of curiosity I decided to do a search for us in the newspapers to see what I could find.

There are 28,711 articles which include the name Jehovah's Witnesses that have thus far been digitised. The earliest is dated 7 January 1869 which was interesting as it was 60+ years before were known by that name.

It turned out to be a sermon written by the Bishop of Oxford and is about Elijah The bishop freely used Jehovah's name in his sermon and he refered to Jehovah's people as Jehovah's Witnesses in one instance in the sermon.

There are a number of newspaper articles in which Jehovah's name is used, the earliest being 1789, which was in a hymn.

 

The first reference in the newspapers about us would have been shortly after we received our 'new' name, Jehovah's Witnesses. 

There was an advert in The Portsmouth Evening News Saturday August 8th 1931.

I have shared it below.

Edited June 19 by GeordieGirl

[GeordieGirl]

For those who would like to read it, here is the 1869 sermon from the Bishop of Oxford mentioned above.

 

If you struggle to read it, click on it and it will open in a new window and then on the magnifier in the middle of the page.

 

Edited June 21 by GeordieGirl

[GeordieGirl]

I was doing my personal bible reading this morning in Revelation and I found a reference in re to a talk by Judge Rutherford in the Albert Hall, London on 30th May 1926,that was printed in full in a London newspaper the following day.  So I went and had a look for it. As we were not known as Jehovah's Witnesses at that time, I had to use a different search reference but did eventually find it.

 

It included a seven part resolution to the rulers of the world.

 

Interestingly, there is an advert at the bottom of the page about Judge Rutherford giving a lecture called 'Palestine for the Jews - Why?' This, of course, now contains obsolete information.

 

If you would like to read the whole article, I have attached it here:

 

 

 

[hatcheckgirl]

That’s really an excellent talk. Very dense, but what we basically still hold true. Thanks Terri 👍