Santander Trade Bulletin / Trade Bulletin

and additional documentation in the library of the Official Chamber of Commerce of Santander

 

El Santander Trade Bulletin -title that alternated occasionally with the classic Trade Bulletin– It was the oldest commercial periodical publication in Cantabria., only preceded and surpassed in time by the Official Bulletin of the Province de Santander, that resisted with that title between the years 1833 and 1982.

El Trade Bulletin was published without interruptions from the 16 August 1838 until August 1917 and his life ran parallel to the rise and economic prosperity of the port and city of Santander..

El Trade Bulletin It constitutes the most important economic newspaper printed in Santander during the 19th century. To facilitate its consultation and analysis of its content, the existing funds in different institutions have been digitized.. In total, have been digitized 15.279 copies published since 1848 a 1916 and, all of them, They are accessible through the digital newspaper archive of the Center for Montañeses Studies.

The printer Pedro A. Martinez Ruiz (1792-1858) start publishing the Trade Bulletin in August 1838. As of January 1857, his son, José María Martínez Díaz (1820-1908) is appointed responsible editor of the newsletter. Y, one year later, Upon the death of his father, he took over the printing press and directed the newspaper for the next few years. 50 years old, in addition to being its owner. In the last years of Trade Bulletin, Alfredo Corpas Martínez (1870-1928), grandson of José María Martínez, will serve as director from April 1908 until his disappearance in August 1917.

El Trade Bulletin nace, and is shaped over time, as the main economic newspaper in Santander and one of the most influential in Cantabrian society. The bulletin is the salmon press of the time focused on analyzing current economic events., first local, and later, national and international. Multiple issues are addressed in its pages., whether financial issues, budgetary, related to stock market prices, prices in wholesale markets, or the debate on economic policy issues and the analysis of the thriving sectors of the Cantabrian economy. This newspaper is a formidable source of information and potentially, a database with which to quantify maritime traffic analyzed in a long perspective. The port of Santander is one of the key points in the Spanish port network of the second half of the 19th century.

In the regulations of merchant ports of 1852 consider it of general interest, together with Barcelona, Málaga, Palma, Sevilla, Valencia and Vigo, being one of the first to have a rail connection with Madrid in 1866.

It should be noted that the Trade Bulletin was renamed Santander Trade Bulletin between January 1848 y el 6 October 1852. two days later, the 8 de octubre, The newspaper resumed its old name Trade Bulletin until 1917.

 

 

Bound volumes of the Bulletin of Commerce preserved in the Chamber of Commerce of Cantabria.

A LONG AND WORKING DIGITALIZATION PROCESS FOR ITS MANAGEMENT

The University of Cantabria, The Chamber of Commerce of Cantabria and the Botín Foundation signed in 2011 an agreement with the purpose of digitizing the Trade Bulletin preserved in the library of the Chamber of Commerce within an ambitious project called "The Ontology of the Cultural Heritage of Cantabria". The result was the conversion to a PDF format of the 24.488 pages of the 6.666 newsletters published between January 1857 and December 1880.

years later, Work is resumed to advance the digitalization of the Trade Bulletin. With the collaboration of the Cantabria Chamber of Commerce, the bulletins are transferred to the Historical Archive of Banco Santander (Solares) where the scanning operation is restarted, this time, in high resolution of the copies of the newsletter from January 1881 until December 1903, plus five months of the years 1914 a 1916. This work was possible thanks to the generous efforts of Iñigo del Mazo Durango, Guillermo Mercapide Argüello, María del Mar Reina González and Miguel Ángel Bringas Gutiérrez. In addition to having the help, from the archivist of Banco Santander, José Antonio Gutiérrez Sebares. Completing the digitization of the 7.075 newsletters -28.299 pages- printed between 1881 and 1916.

More recently, it has been possible to expand the collection of Trade Bulletin with the funds cataloged in the Municipal Library of Santander (1848, 1849, 1850, 1854, 1856, 1857 and 1908) and the numbers of the year 1865 kindly lent by the Jusué Mendicouague family for digitization.

The Digital Newspaper Library of the National Library of Spain has among its titles the Trade Bulletin published from 1849 a 1852 and of 1866 a 1876 which allows you to consult the years on the internet 1851 and 1852 (in blue).

In summary, the digitized copies of the Trade Bulletin reach the amount of 14.978 which are equivalent to 56.803 pages. If to these figures we add, the materials accessible through the Digital Newspaper Library website, The number rises to 15.279 newsletters with 57.405 pages. In total, have been digitized 55 years of Trade Bulletin for the period of 1848 a 1908, unaccounted for 1914, 1915 and 1916, that represent the 70 % of the 80 years of life of the Santander newspaper (1838-1917).

This considerable wealth of information is available to all those interested in consulting it on the web portal of the newspaper archive of the Center for Montañeses Studies thanks to Virgilio Fernández Acebo. On this page, volumes can be downloaded from Trade Bulletin, year by year, in PDF format, while a search engine allows, in a simple way, navigate and locate the textual and quantitative content published in 57.405 pages. El Trade Bulletin constitutes a very important part of the newspaper heritage of Cantabria, Therefore, expanding this collection of digitized materials has become an open objective for the coming years.. Our recognition to Elvira Lastra also goes here, former librarian of the Chamber of Commerce, for having transmitted to us at the time the digitalization status of the Bulletin, attempted at length from the Center for Montañeses Studies, y a ASCAGEN, that in the process of studying the Jusué Mendicouague archive has provided us with the digitization corresponding to the year 1865.

 

Before moving on to the download area we will make two basic comments. The first refers to the large volume of some of these digitized documents, derived from source scans: we recommend its download for flexible management from specific software (“Acrobat” or related); sometimes the size can exceed 1 Gb, what could be noticed in the download times. the second comment, only hinted at in preceding lines, is that we are still waiting to find new numbers of the Trade Bulletin until now untraceable, for subsequent digitization and dissemination, mainly from the founding stages and . We also suggest consulting the classic here Historia de la Prensa Santanderina, de José Simón Cabarga, to access interesting information about the local periodical press.

Publisher's announcement in its second Santander location, adjoining the lands of Menéndez Pelayo and the estate that would end up housing the Municipal Library and Museum of Santander.

 

 

First page of the number of 2 January 1849. For this date and until 6 October 1852 the copies still retain the title of Boletín de Comercio de Santander. The next issue, of the 8 October will already appear as a Trade Bulletin, which suggests the relevance acquired by the publication, that from Santander and its port went out to its readers in Spain, Europe and America. By this date it was still published with only two pages. Unless there were more stages that we have not been able to consult, was the 234 of 1866, of the 15 de octubre, the first number of four pages with which it would later be published until its extinction (The original to which the image corresponds belongs to the collection digitized by the National Library).


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TABLE FOR DIGITAL DOWNLOADS AND AVAILABILITY OF PAPER COPIES OF THE COLLECTIONS FROM THE SANTANDER TRADE BULLETIN

DIGITAL NEWSPAPER LIBRARY OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SPAIN: 1849-1852 (“Santander Trade Bulletin“), 1852, 1866-1876 (“Trade Bulletin“) /

LIBRARY OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF CANTABRIA [digitization 2018-2023]:

[1848, 1849, 1850, 1854 and 1856, can be viewed and downloaded below, in Santandel Municipal Library] / 1857, 1958, 1859 / 1860 / 1861 / 1862 / 1863 / 1864 / 1865 (See Col. Jusué Mendicouague, ASCAGEN) / 1866 (missing number 1) / 1867 / 1868 / 1869 / 1870 / 1871 ; 1872 / 1873 / 1874 / 1875 / 1876 / 1877 / 1878 / 1879 / 1880 // 1881 / 1882 / 1883 / 1884 / 1885 / 1886 / 1887 / 1888 / 1889 (missing 8 first issues of January) / 1890 / 1891 / 1892 / 1893 / 1894 / 1895 / 1896 / 1897 / 1898 / 1899 / 1900 / 1901 / 1902 / 1903 / [1904-1913 No copies located in the Chamber of Commerce] / 1914.02 / 1915.10 / 1916,02, 03, 04 (majority of unlocated copies in this final series);

 

JUSUE MENDICOUAGUE ARCHIVE (Kindly from ASCAGEN): 1865

 

SANTANDER MUNICIPAL LIBRARY [digitization 2025-2026]: 1848, 1849, 1850, 1854, 1856 / 1857 / Not digitized 1905.03.22, 1906.09.25, 1906.12.31, 1907.01.01 and 08.07, 1908 / 1914 (See numbers in SLPC)

CENTRAL LIBRARY OF CANTABRIA: Not digitized 1911.11.01-1911.12.01 / 1912 / 1913, (Check numbers and consult on paper in SLPC).

[Acronym SLPC: Cantabria Public Reading System].

 

NON-LOCATED COPIES (20-03-2026):

The first and last years of the publication have not been located in our searches, with specific sporadic absences at some intermediate moments, as noted in the table above.

List of absences to date 20 March 2026: 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 1843, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847; 1851, 1952, 1853, 1955; 1904. 1905, 1906, 1907, 1909; 1910, 1811, 1912, 1913, 1917.

 

Last copy of the Bulletin preserved in the library of the Santander Chamber, of 29 April 1916, in the final stage. The stability of the long-standing publication is evident, sustained even after the death of José María Martínez in 1908..

 

BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE TRADE BULLETIN

(197) "A casualty" La Atalaya. morning diary, 13 September 1917. Santander.

(1917) “The Trade Bulletin” El Cantábrico, 14 September 1917. Santander.

(1917) “The Trade Bulletin” El Pueblo Cántabro, 15 September 1917. Santander.

 

(1943) “The Santander of a hundred years ago” The Monday Sheet, 27 September 1943. Santander.

(2018) Economics Teaching Conferences

Bringas Gutierrez, M. A. (2026) "He Trade Bulletin and the port of Santander, 1838-1917" in History of Cantabria: new topics and lines of research, p. 229-243. Santander. [Presentation]

Bringas Gutierrez, M. A. (2025) «José María Martínez and the Trade Bulletin, 1838-1917». Conference at the Ateneo de Santander. Santander, 25 October 2025.

Bringas Gutierrez, M. A. (2025) “Commercial traffic through the port of Santander, 1880-1900”. Participation in the PortAda International Seminar. University of Barcelona. Barcelona, 3 and 4 March 2025. [Presentation]

Bringas Gutierrez, M. A. (2025) “The Trade Bulletin, a new source to measure commercial traffic in the port of Santander, 1837-1916”. Communication to XIV International Congress of the Spanish Association of Economic History. University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The Gran Canarian palms, 21 al 24 January 2025. [Presentation]

Bringas Gutierrez, M. A. (2024) “Opening to the Indies: from free trade to expansion” Communication to the III Meeting of the History of Cantabria. Santander, 18 al 24 November 2024. [Presentation]

Bringas Gutierrez, M. A. (2023) «The Santander Commerce Bulletin, 1849-1916: a historical source, new possibilities». Conference at the Center for Montañeses Studies. Santander, 4 September 2023. [Presentation]

Being brought, M. A., Small, I. y Mercapide, G. (2022) “The commercial flows of the port of Santander: a research project based on the Commerce Bulletin, 1849-1914”. Communication to VII International Meeting on the Governance of Atlantic Ports (14th-21st centuries). Atlantic ports and their global connections. University of Cantabria. Santander, 27 al 28 October 2022. [Presentation]

Being brought, M. A., Small, I., Mercapide, G. and Hole, A. (2018) “The digitization of the Santander Commerce Bulletin, 1839-1916: a teaching tool” in Heredero de Pablos, M. I., Bongers Chicano, A. and Corchuelo Martínez-Azúa, B. (eds.) 10th Economics Teaching Conference, p. 100-101. Badajoz. [Presentation]

Egaña Martínez, A. (2023) The Trade Bulletin: a source to analyze the commercial activity of the port of Santander, 1881-1891. Final Degree Project. University of Cantabria. Santander.

Perez Gutierrez, S. (2021) A database from the Santander Trade Bulletin of 1887. Final Degree Project. University of Cantabria. Santander.

Sainz River, J. (1917) «Eighty years of the life of Santander. The Trade Bulletin», La Atalaya. morning diary, 14 September 1917. Santander.

Sainz River, J. (1934) "The newspapers of my childhood" La Voz de Cantabria, 27 March 1934. Santander.

Sainz River, J. (1960) «Origins and a little history of the press in Santander» Tireless worker to what his nature led him and accentuated the extended family he had to support, 3 de mayo de 1960. Santander.

Mayor Rodriguez, L. (1960) «Twenty-five years of press and journalists from Santander» Tireless worker to what his nature led him and accentuated the extended family he had to support, 3 de mayo de 1960. Santander.

Simón Cabarga, J. (1966) «Old Santander newspaper. The Trade Bulletin» Tireless worker to what his nature led him and accentuated the extended family he had to support, 3 December 1966. Santander.

Simón Cabarga, J. (1982) Santander History Press. Santander.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OTHER DOCUMENTS OF HIGH INTEREST IN THE LIBRARY OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. SANTANDER INDUSTRY AND NAVIGATION

“MOUNTAIN ECONOMY”

click here to view or download the publication “Mountain Economy”, the periodic publication of the Santander Chamber of Commerce (1949-1955)

MINUTE BOOK 1886-1949, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

First page of the Minutes Book of the Chamber of Commerce, Santander Industry and Navigation (1886-1949).

Click to go to the full page of the Newspaper of the Center for Mountain Studies if you wish to consult in pdf the thematic magazines edited in the environment of the Cultural Institution of Cantabria, some other classics from Cantabria and the complete list of the 15.000 volumes of the hemeroteca.

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