The Copley Archive: Air Pollution: An Annotated Catalogue of the Copley's Newspaper Cuttings 1950-1967

The Copley Archives are held in the Special Collections & Archives of the  University of Newcastle Auchmuty Library.

Six collated collections of newspaper cuttings concerning air pollution, predominately in Newcastle, are held in archive boxes C177 (1944 – 1960), C178 (1960 – 1966) and C179 (1967).

I have excluded from this catalogue speculative articles about the harms of radioactive fallout, reports of fog (as opposed to smog), and technical articles about developments in air conditioning.

Articles from these sources about occupational hazards such as pneumoconiosis, asbestosis and welding fumes are included in my catalogue of the Copley collection about Industrial Health and Safety.

A detailed account of how and why Merv and Janet Copley collected these cuttings is available on the Auchmuty Library Special Collections website.

The headlines of the articles have been recorded verbatim; the contents are paraphrased.

Copyright David Smith 2026