The Local and Regional Press. DNCJ additional entries cfp

The editors of the DNCJ are keen to expand its coverage of the local and regional press, for the online version (now part of ProQuest's C19: The Nineteenth Century Index site) and any revised print edition.

You can help by:

  • Commenting on the list of suggestions below
  • Sending further suggestions (with one-sentence rationales)
  • Offering to write a short entry.

Do check the entry is not already included, and remember the criteria for inclusion:

  1. representativeness (e.g. of genre, region, 'class', or period)
  2. distinction of format or contribution, even if 'one-off ' titles/articles
  3. extent of influence
  4. duration/longevity of serials or personal careers
  5. breadth of contributions by persons, across titles or subjects
  6. range/variety of entries in DNCJ as a whole, with respect to periodicity, gender, readership type, price and illustration.

Please email me at:

Thanks

Andrew Hobbs

Associate editor responsible for the local and regional press

Possible additions

 

Editors and Journalists

Acland, James  (1799‑1876) editor of various unstamped radical newspapers including the Bristolian, the North Cheshire Reformer and Hull Portfolio, who acquired notoriety as a League lecturer and later election agent: throughout his career Acland agitated for reform via pen and platform.

Annand, James (editor of Northern Weekly Leader)

Fairhurst, William (founder and first editor of Bolton Football Field, a pioneering sports special; influential in the promotion of professional football in the local press; arranged profit-sharing deal with publishers Tillotsons)

Langley, John Baxter (editor of Preston Guardian, lecturer, spied for North in American Civil War; imprisoned for fraud)

Reid, Sir Thomas Wemyss (first journalist to be knighted; editor of Leeds Mercury; managing director of Cassell, biographer)

Smiles, Samuel (editor of Leeds Times)

 

Printers

Gedge, Johnson, proprietor of the Bury and Norwich Post

Soulby, Stephen (founder of Soulby’s Ulverston Advertiser, inventor of ‘Ulverstonian’ letterpress printing machine)

Walker, Thomas of Preston (who apprenticed Baines, Rogerson, proprietor of Liverpool Mercury and 3 Preston newspaper editors; a cannon was once fired at Walker’s premises in disapproval at his Preston Review [1793-94])

 

Publishers

Baxter, W.E, of Lewes, proprietor of Sussex Agricultural Express and 23 other titles

Hodgson, Sarah (publisher of Newcastle Chronicle)

Leader, Robert (editor and publisher of Sheffield Independent, involved in fiction syndication)

Leng, William (publisher of Sheffield Telegraph, one of few Conservative major provincial dailies; pioneer of new genres, e.g. weekend miscellany paper, regional sports special)

Mackie, Dr Alexander; planned first journalism school at Crewe (1877); publisher and editor of Warrington Guardian series, an early provincial newspaper chain

Saunders, William, owner of Western Morning News (1860), Western Weekly News, Sun and Central Press, founder of Central Press news agency

Toulmin, George (owner of Preston Guardian, Blackburn Times, Lancashire Evening Post, co-owner of Warrington Examiner, involved in Accrington Reporter, Bolton Chronicle, active in Liberal politics, book publisher)

 

Titles

Birmingham Weekly Post (Midlands example of weekend miscellany newspaper)

Bolton Cricket and Football Field (an early sports-only sports special)

Bolton Evening News (one of first provincial evening papers)

Bradford Daily Telegraph (‘Without a single exception, proprietor, editor, reporters, and compositors were strangers to Bradford and – with the exception of the proprietor Mr Thos Shields who had paid one or two flying visits to the town – not one of them had been a week in the town before the paper was started.’ [Printers’ Register])

Bradford Observer and its editor William Byles (one of the biggest Yorkshire newspapers after the Mercury and, through its support of causes such as free‑trade, anti‑slavery and the rights of nonconformists, a major force in the region's liberal politics).

Brighton Patriot (Chartist paper)

Bristol Mercury (very literary, according to Grant; example of South-West press)

Carlisle Journal (example of Cumberland paper)

Central Press (a ‘newspaper for newspaper proprietors, organ of Central Press news agency)

Cotton Factory Times (unusual miscellany newspaper capitalising on occupational/regional identity of readers, featured much fiction and dialect)

Daily Bristol Times and Mirror

Daily Gazette/North Eastern Daily Gazette/ Middlesbrough Gazette (first 1/2d daily)

Eastern Morning News, Hull

Illustrated Midland News (provincial version of Illustrated London News)

Ipswich Journal (example of East Anglian paper)

Leicestershire Mercury (Grant says The Nonconformist was an offshoot of it, and latter’s editor Miall wrote leaders for it)

Little Folks

Liverpool Mercury (one of most popular Liverpool morning papers)

Liverpool Weekly Post (very popular weekend miscellany newspaper)

Manchester Evening Chronicle (example of 1/2d evening paper)

Manchester Weekly Times (a major weekend miscellany paper)

Midland Counties Express (2d, but most copies given free; wide circulation, e.g. into Lancashire; an anomaly)

Original Illuminated Clock Almanac (premier Yorkshire dialect publication, edited by leading dialect writer John Hartley)

Oxford Times ( founded as a broadsheet in 1862, representative of a University city newspaper and interesting for its portrayal of town/gown relationships)

Preston Guardian (example of bi-weekly; produced some technical developments in printing; example of Nonconformist Liberal press; had some notable editors including Wemyss Reid, John Baxter Langley; publishers Toulmins involved in other Lancs papers)

Reading Mercury (owned by Catholic family, featured much agricultural news)

Sheffield Independent

Sheffield Telegraph (one of first provincial penny dailies, flagship of major publishing group)

Western Daily Press, Bristol

Western Morning News, Plymouth (had London office; involved in founding Central Press agency; had 50 district correspondents)

Westmorland Gazette (edited briefly by de Quincey; still very literary in 1870s)

Whitehaven News

Young Naturalist

 

Topics

Advertisers (free local newspapers, e.g. Penrhyn Advertiser, Cornwall, Preston Weekly Advertiser)

Agricultural journalism (as element, and as separate titles, e.g. Preston Guardian,; Leics Advertiser; Bedford Express; Sussex Agricultural Express; North of England Farmer (Newcastle); Mark Lane Express, Bell’s Weekly Messenger)

Almanacs

City/regional press entries (similar to current entry on Manchester press):

  • North-East
  • Liverpool
  • Sheffield
  • Leeds
  • Birmingham
  • South-West
  • South-East
  • London local press
  • Isle of Man (besides its local press, it had no ‘taxes on knowledge’ and briefly in 1840s took advantage of free postage to become a ‘national’ publishing centre for British Isles

Correspondent (local contributors to local and metropolitan papers, their status and functions)

Dialect publications

Evening newspapers

Football programmes (some included extensive amounts of journalism)

Foreign affairs reporting

Independent, neutral (what the terms meant as applied to newspapers; growth of these descriptions)

Joint stock companies (influence on increasing capitalisation of newspapers, anonymity of owners, use by Conservative provincial papers

Lineage (key issue impacting on the earning potential of the newspaper reporter and the ability of individual titles to broaden their reporting agenda without the need to employ full-time staff. )

Lit. and the provincial press (book reviews, excerpts etc were significant features in most titles; taken together, an enormous body of writing, possibly outweighing reviews produced in London

Local government, reporting of

Local identity and the press

London letter (a significant part of the content of provincial press, peculiar status of their writers)

Market reports (corn, cattle, financial, etc)

Nature columns

News placard (important source of news for public, often attracting crowds)

Newspaper chains

Newspaper office architecture (description and meanings of – miniature town halls and libraries)

Parish magazines

Partly printed sheets/middles

Penny-a-liner ( ubiquitous figure in the regional and metropolitan daily/evening press in late-Victorian Britain and beyond, providing an at times essential service, whilst attracting strong criticism from industry commentators regarding his modus operandi. The penny-a-liner occupies a contradictory position in the history of reporting, being seen as both a fringe figure, open to ridicule and excess, and yet in some respects central to the broadening of the daily news agenda)

Pigeons (role as communication technology)

Provincial Roman Catholic press

Provincial magazines (separate entry plus more representative examples)

Provincial religious press

Public meetings, reporting of

Shipping news

Visitors’ lists (found in seaside resorts and spa towns, unusual instance of material published locally for non-locals; many evolved into local papers)

Weather reports

Women’s columns (staple of provincial press, often syndicated)

 

Organisations

Central Press