Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media Series Editors: Professor Bill Bell (Cardiff University), Dr Chandrika Kaul (Department of Modern History, University of St Andrews), Professor Kenneth Osgood (McBride Honors Program, Colorado School of Mines), Dr Alexander S. Wilkinson (Centre for the History of the Media, University College Dublin) Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media publishes original, high-quality research into the cultures of communication from the middle ages to the present day. The series explores the variety of subjects and disciplinary approaches that characterize this vibrant field of enquiry. The series will help shape current interpretations not only of the media, in all its forms, but also of the powerful relationship between the media and politics, society, and the economy. Advisory Board: Professor Carlos Barrera (University of Navarra, Spain), Professor Peter Burke (Emmanuel College, Cambridge), Professor Denis Cryle (Central Queensland University, Australia), Professor David Culbert (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge), Professor Nicholas Cull (Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California), Professor Tom O Malley (Centre for Media History, University of Wales, Aberystwth), Professor Chester Pach (Ohio University) Titles include: Laurel Brake, Chandrika Kaul and Mark W. Turner (editors) THE NEWS OF THE WORLD AND THE BRITISH PRESS, 1843 2011 Journalism for the Rich, Journalism for the Poor Jane L. Chapman GENDER, CITIZENSHIP AND NEWSPAPERS Historical and Transnational Perspectives Jane Chapman, Anna Hoyles, Andrew Kerr and Adam Sherif COMICS AND THE WORLD WARS A Cultural Record Victoria E. M. Gardner THE BUSINESS OF NEWS IN ENGLAND, 1760 1820 Andrew Griffiths THE NEW JOURNALISM, THE NEW IMPERIALISM AND THE FICTION OF EMPIRE, 1870 1900 Chandrika Kaul MEDIA AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE Michael Krysko AMERICAN RADIO IN CHINA International Encounters with Technology and Communications, 1919 41 Christoph Hendrik Müller WEST GERMANS AGAINST THE WEST Anti-Americanism in Media and Public Opinion in the Federal Republic of Germany 1949 68
James Mussell THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY PRESS IN THE DIGITAL AGE Neal M. Rosendorf FRANCO SELLS SPAIN TO AMERICA Hollywood, Tourism and Public Relations as Postwar Spanish Soft Power Joel Wiener THE AMERICANIZATION OF THE BRITISH PRESS, 1830s 1914 Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 230 23153 5 hardcover Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 230 23154 2 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
The Business of News in England, 1760 1820 Victoria E. M. Gardner
Victoria E. M. Gardner 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-33638-5 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-57447-6 ISBN 978-1-137-33639-2 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137336392 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gardner, Victoria E. M. (Victoria Elizabeth Moseley), 1977 The business of news in England, 1760 1820 / Victoria E. M. Gardner, Wellington College, Berkshire, UK. pages cm. (Palgrave studies in the history of the media) Summary: The Business of News in England, 1760 1820 explores the commerce of the English press during a critical period of press politicization, as the nation confronted foreign wars and revolutions that threatened domestic governance (1760 1820). Britain had a precociously commercial newspaper press, yet our understanding of it has remained surprisingly basic. Examining the lives and businesses of 257 newspapers and 305 newspaper proprietors, this study explores the emergence of the provincial press as the powerhouse of the English press. It demonstrates how competition in the newspaper trade shaped cooperative networks and as a result, shaped news content, information flow, and even readers notions of belonging; and how the financial success of the trade and occupational cohesion enabled the rise of the Fourth Estate and irrevocably changed the dynamics of power in the press-politics nexus. Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Newspaper publishing Great Britain History 18th century. 2. Newspaper publishing Great Britain History 19th century. 3. Journalism, Regional Great Britain History 18th century. 4. Journalism, Regional Great Britain History 19th century. 5. English newspapers Ownership Economic aspects History 18th century. 6. English newspapers Ownership Economic aspects History 19th century. 7. Press and politics Great Britain History 18th century. 8. Press and politics Great Britain History 19th century. I. Title. PN5116.G38 2015 072 dc23 2015025778 Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
For my family
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Contents List of Figures, Tables and Maps Acknowledgements viii ix Introduction 1 1 The English Press 15 2 Advertisements, Agents and Exchange 47 3 Provincial Newspaper Proprietors 68 4 Securing the Family, Embedding the Trade 93 5 Communities and Communications Brokers 117 6 News Networks 138 Conclusion 162 Appendix 166 Notes 208 Bibliography 237 Index 265 vii
List of Figures, Tables and Maps Figures I.1 Edward Villiers Rippingille, The Post Office (1819) 3 1.1 Selection of taxes on articles of consumption, 1792 1793 41 1.2 Metropolitan and provincial advertising duty, 1713 1823 41 1.3 Net stamp and advertising duty, 1797 1826 (adjusted for inflation using 1826 price level) 44 3.1 Per annum totals of provincial newspapers, failures and start-ups 71 3.2 Distribution of sampled proprietors according to ownership formation, sample groups A and B 77 3.3 Ownership formations of sampled proprietors, 1760 1820, sample group A 78 4.1 Average length of ownership according to method of newspaper acquisition, sample group A 98 5.1 Profit and loss, John Fletcher s Chester printing and newspaper business, 1783 1786 131 Table 4.1 Ownership of Aris s Birmingham Gazette, 1741 1831 96 Maps 1.1 Geographical distribution of provincial newspapers, end 1760 20 1.2 Geographical distribution of provincial newspapers, end 1790 21 1.3 Geographical distribution of provincial newspapers, end 1820 23 6.1 Networks of Bath Chronicle, Bristol Mercury, Chester Chronicle, Cumberland Pacquet, Drewry s Derby Mercury, Liverpool Advertiser, Harrop s Manchester Mercury, Shrewsbury Chronicle and York Chronicle, 1777 99 149 viii
Acknowledgements The transformation in the availability of digital newspapers in recent years has been stark and will, I hope, bring newspapers to new prominence in historical research. However, historians have long approached newspapers with a peculiar naivety in that they rarely take account of their provenance as sources. Whereas letters, diaries and the suchlike are examined with a critical eye and scrutinised for authorial intentions, newspapers are oft-presumed to be a genuine reflection of community attitudes. In order to use them effectively as sources, we need to understand how they were constructed and who or what influenced them. This book uncovers the motivations of proprietors and the myriad others who sought to influence what appeared in print. As such, it is something of a quirk of this book that in the age of the digital newspaper this study is based predominantly on archival materials. I was fortunate to receive funding for my research, first and foremost from the Economic and Social Research Council, as well as St John s College Oxford, and latterly from the Bibliographical Society (Major Grant). I must admit that at times I have wondered why I didn t select a subject that might require somewhat more exotic research locations than ones that the investigation of the English newspaper press affords; as friends and colleagues have travelled to the corners of the globe, I have travelled into the corners and the depths of England, spending time in archives and libraries across its counties. I have been blessed, however, with a plethora of helpful archivists and librarians, including those at the Bodleian Oxford, Birmingham Archives, the British Library, the sadly defunct British Library Newspaper Library, Carlisle Archives, Cheshire Archives, Cornwall Record Office, Devon Archives, Essex Record Office, History of Advertising Trust, John Rylands Library Manchester, Lancashire Archives, Lincolnshire Archives, the National Archives, Kew, Newcastle Local Studies Library, the Post Office Archives, Sheffield Archives, Shropshire Archives, Tyne and Wear Archives, West Yorkshire Archives, York Minster Library and Wiltshire and Swindon Archives. I am grateful also to the editors of Cultural and Social History for granting permission to use sections of The Communications Broker and the Public Sphere: John Ware and the Cumberland Pacquet, Cultural and Social History, X (2013), 533 57, in Chapter 5. ix
x Acknowledgements Among those who have helped me along the way, providing both academic and pastoral support, are peers and colleagues at Oxford, Manchester, Edinburgh, Hull, Roehampton and beyond: Hannah Barker, Maureen Bell, James Briaris, Mike Brown, Mandy Capern, Erica Charters, Markus Eberhardt, Tommas Ellender, Ben Fenby, Erika Hanna, Bob Harris, Ben Heller, John Hinks, Laura James, Jenny Macleod, Darren McClafferty, Barry McKay, Filiz McNamara, Liam McNamara, Julia Markovich, Jenny Morrissey, Stana Nenadic, Michael Powell, David Salisbury, Tanya Schmoller, David Stoker, Will Slauter, Ria Snowdon- Fidler, Michael Turner and Nick Wrightson. Friends and colleagues have been tireless in their reading of drafts: thank you Martin Conboy, David Finkelstein, Sasha Handley, Andrew Hobbs, Tom O Malley, John Sienkiewicz and Siobhan Talbott, with special thanks to Christine Ferdinand and Kathryn Gleadle who supervised and read many earlier incarnations. My biggest intellectual debt is to Helen Berry, my inspiring and tireless Master s supervisor and friend, without whom I would not have taken the path I have. Helen reassured me many years ago that supervision was for life: little did she know that I would take her at her word. My family have supported me in so many ways before, during and towards the end of this project. I am utterly grateful. This book is little recompense but it is, of course, for them.