Perhaps the most major milestone in newspaper history was the November 16, 1665 launch of the Oxford Gazette, considered by many experts and institutions to be the first newspaper ever printed (emphasis on paper as the pamphlet-style newsbooks were the precursors to newspapers). According to newspaper historian Mark Mitchell, the Gazette was the first to meet the seven standards for a newspaper including longevity, availability to all classes, and more importantly, text divided into columns. It was also one of the first to be printed twice-weekly under the same title; whereas earlier twice-weekly newspapers alternated between two titles. The Oxford Gazette was printed about 60 miles northwest of London in Oxford, England, where King Charles II had moved his Royal Court to avoid the Great Plague, or Black Death. As the official publication of the King, it was vital that newspapers maintain circulation throughout the region, especially London, so the Oxford Gazette was printed in two locations – with one printer in Oxford and one printer in London – which can be discerned by the colophon on the verso.
In February 1666, the King decided that the Plague had subsided enough to move his Court back to London, and he brought the Oxford Gazette along. With issue No. 24 (shown above), datelined February 1 to 5, 1665 (Julian Calendar), it became the legendary London Gazette, an official newspaper still published today. The London Gazette demonstrated major influence on many publishers as single-sheets newspapers with text-divided columns became the next big thing. The trend-setting Gazette also played a critical role in feeding American colonists’ appetite for news. Copies of the Gazette were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean – usually taking four to eight weeks per voyage – to provide English and European residents in the New World with reports from their homelands. A thriving transatlantic readership and hunger for homeland news, in part, are the reasons why we didn’t see the first successful newspaper printed on American soil until 1704.
In late 1678, England was consumed by a heated debate on religious persecution. Public fears escalated about the increasing influences of Catholicism. With a Roman Catholic wife and brother, who was also heir to the throne, King Charles II was thought to be too Catholic. This religious hysteria helped one Anglican priest, Titus Oates, concoct a story about a fictitious conspiracy to kill the King.
Exploiting the public panic and anti-Catholic mood of the time, journalist Henry Care published the History of Popery, which when printed for the first time on December 3, 1678, also contained a Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome and the Popish Courant. From 1678 to July 1683, this news pamphlet fed the fire of religious debate and helped cement anti-Catholic prejudice.
On July 7, 1679, the twice-weekly Domestick Intelligence newspaper began printing and, as the title suggested, it focused on local topics. Domestick Intelligence was published and edited by Benjamin Harris, who moved to Boston in the mid-1680s. On September 25,1690, Harris published the first attempt at an American newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick. The American newspaper was intended to be printed monthly; however, the first edition was printed without license and featured several eye-brow-raising reports, such as the King of France’s alleged affair with his daughter-in-law. The newspaper was immediately banned and burned under the order of Governor Thomas Hinckley with no second edition ever printed. In fact, the only original copy known to survive is held by the British Library, likely the issue sent back to the homeland by the Governor.
At the same time, Roger L’Estrange worked to counter the accusations in printed pamphlets. Demonstrating the art of investigative journalism, L’Estrange revealed several inconsistencies of the supposed “Popish Plot” in his newspaper, the Observator. On April 13, 1681, L’Estrange, still chief licenser and surveyor of the press, began publishing the Observator, a newspaper similar in looks to the London Gazette, but written as commentary in the form of a point-counter-point dialogue between Whigs and Tories, and clearly favoring the Tory viewpoint. As a result of his reporting on the “Popish Plot,” L’Estrange helped expose the fabricated controversy and convict Oates, who was imprisoned in 1685. For centuries, religion was tied to territory with the state typically enforcing religious uniformity. However, in late 17th century England, philosophical, political and religious writings laid the intellectual framework for what would eventually come to be known as the separation of church and state, a principle of great importance outlined in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
News competition was strong during the days of the diurnalls, mercuries and intelligencers, but the official London Gazette was essentially a news monopoly until the Licensing of the Press Act lapsed between 1679 and 1685, and several unlicensed newspapers appeared. Newspaper competition greatly intensified when it lapsed again in 1695 and many new successful and long-lasting titles began publishing. “Where the earlier newsbooks had been weekly, and the London Gazette appeared twice a week, these morning posts were published three times a week – reflecting the public appetite for news and comment. Among them were the Post Boy (1695-1728) and the Post Man (1695-1730),” according to an Early History of the English Newspaper (Gale).
London was indeed the capital of news publishing during the 17th century, but most of the early English newspapers and their newsbook predecessors made their way to the English countryside and surrounding countries via post riders or private carriers. First published in 1699, and often stopping and starting with several different titles, the Edinburgh Gazette was the first native-printed Scottish paper, 400 miles north of London, published by James Donaldson. “Donaldson’s evident dependence on the London papers was perfectly natural as was his need for speed to compete with the London papers that came in the mail for sale in Edinburgh,” according to The English Atlantic (Steele, 1986). This 1711 issue of the Edinburgh Gazette, now titled the Evening Post or the New Edinburgh Gazette, is evidence that the newspaper was published later in the day, likely in order to wait for the post to arrive with news from London that could be recycled.
The Daily Courant appeared on March 11, 1702, and holds the historical designation of first daily newspaper, or at least the first London daily and certainly the first to use daily in its title. Some historians point to the Norwich Post as the first daily, having launched in 1701. However, even the British Library labels the Daily Courant as the first daily paper in its Concise History of the British Newspaper. When the Daily Courant was published, its fiercest competition didn’t come from other newspapers; rather, it came from printed sermons by local preachers. Call it the press vs. the pulpit, as a logical continuation of the struggle to determine the best source of information between church and state.
The 18th century, commonly referred to as the Age of Enlightenment, saw the emergence of even more serial publications. Writing under the pseudonym “Isaac Bickerstaff,” the first consistent journalistic persona, Richard Steele and Joseph Addison published the Tatler three times a week. The Tatler, which featured essays, theatre criticism and, as the title and introductory paragraph of the issue shown above suggests, leisurely gossip overheard in London coffeehouses.
After the Tory government shut down the Tatler, Addison and Steele soon joined forces again and published a daily newspaper, titled the Spectator, that promised to report more news than commentary and to maintain “an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories.” In August, 1712, the first newspaper tax was imposed, an attempt by English government to suppress the booming print media industry and eliminate small papers that were most vocal in opposition of the government — a less direct form of censorship. This uniquely untrimmed October 14, 1712, issue of the Spectator was among the first newspapers to feature the red tax stamp.
By the mid-1700s in England, newspapers were being printed smaller and with eight pages instead of the typical two or four. The first such title was the London Chronicle (1757-1765) like issue No. 2 from January 1 to 4, 1757, shown above.
