Before there was Instagram and TikTok, there were broadsides.
If you were a literate Londoner between the 16th and 19th centuries, chances are you’d have gleaned a lot of your news, advice, satire and gossip from broadsides — mass printed street lit that was liberally pasted up/dished out around town, often with a nice big image at the top to catch your attention.
From these single-sided dispatches, Londoners learned of devastating fires, picked up new ballads, found out which criminals were most wanted — and even got tips on how to cure that embarrassing health issue that’d been nagging them. Infamously, broadsides were also sold at public executions.
A new, free exhibition at Guildhall Library, Broadsides: Speaking to the People, explores the phenomenon of this pre-newspaper format as an all-encompassing media that was disseminated around London, and available to folk of all classes.
As ever, Guildhall Library has dug deep into the archives to retrieve gem-like artefacts, including an account of a ‘strange and wonderful’ earthquake that struck the city in 1692 (it features marvellous little details, such as Spitalfields weavers’ handiwork being ruined in the shaken-up looms) and another of a fire that ravaged the Tower of London in 1841, in which the Crown Jewels were passed out of a window by a daring police officer.
One thing that sets these broadsides apart from today’s social media: they’re notably more text heavy — well, unless you’re comparing them to Truth posts from a certain President.
Speaking of which, Broadsides opens a few days after another free Guildhall exhibition gets going; America and London marks 250 years since the founding of the United States, with objects including letters dated 1775, sent to the City of London and acknowledging links between the City and America prior to the Declaration of Independence; and an order of service for the memorial for President John F Kennedy at St Paul’s Cathedral on 1 December 1963.
Broadsides, Guildhall Library, 5 May-29 October 2026, free.
America and London, City of London Heritage Gallery, Guildhall Art Gallery, 2 May-29 October 2026, free.
