422 NEWSPAPERS [SCOTLAND. papers. It is now published both as a daily and as a weekly paper. Leeds has now four dailies and six weeklies. Exeter. Journalism in Exeter began in the same year as in Leeds, and, somewhat singularly, with three newspapers, all of which in the first year of existence became the subject of debate in parliament. The western capital was then fiercely political. Its journals took the freedom of commenting on proceedings in parliament, and the three editors those of The Exeter Mercury, The Protestant Mercury, and The Postmaster or Loyal Mercury were all summoned to the bar of the House of Commons. 1 The incident is curious as showing that each of the three represented a rival MS. news-letter writer in London. Man- The following year (1719) saw the beginnings of journalism in Chester. Manchester, originating with The Manchester Weekly Journal. The Manchester Gazette followed in 1730, and lasted until 1760. Then, in 1762, came Joseph Harrop s Manchester Mercury, which had a stormy life, but continued to appear until 1830. In 1867 Manchester had three daily papers and four weekly ones ; now it has six dailies (two Conservative, two Liberal, and two neutral) and seven weeklies. Binning- The earliest of the Birmingham newspapers dates from 1741, when ham. Aris s Gazette (still in course of publication) began its career. It seems to have had no competitor, of any lengthened existence, until the establishment in 1836 of The Midland Counties Herald. The daily press of Birmingham begins with the year 1857, and with The Birmingham Post. There are now three daily papers and nine weeklies, exclusive of The Midland Sporting News, pub lished twice a day, but relating only to its special subject. Of the other papers six are neutral, four Liberal, two Conservative. Cam- The newspapers of Cambridge begin with the Chronicle of 1744, bridge, still extant. The Radical Intelligencer of the later years of the last century, conducted by Benjamin Flower, and notable in the history of press prosecutions, is said to have been the first provincial paper in England for which original leading articles on the political topics of the day were written. But it would need a far-reaching ex amination of scattered collections and files of newspapers preserved in editorial offices the collection, large as it is, in the British Museum is quite inadequate to the inquiry to warrant any absolute assertion on that point. Cambridge has now three weekly news papers (one Liberal, one Conservative, one neutral), exclusive of Oxford, those university organs which appear only during term. Oxford journalism begins, strictly speaking, with Mercurius Aulicus^ (1643, see p. 414, above), but the earliest really local newspaper is The Oxford Journal of 1753, still in existence. The city has in all (exclusive, as above, of university ones) four weekly papers, three of which are Conservative organs. Wales. The earliest existing newspaper of Wales is The North Wales Chronicle, published at Bangor, which began to appear in 1807. The entire newspaper press of the principality numbered in 1850 nine journals, in 1873 sixty, in 1883 seventy-five. Of these eleven are printed in Welsh ; one of them, Y Llan a r Dyivysogacth describes itself as "the only" church and state Welsh newspaper. Of the English -printed papers, thirteen are described as Conserva tive, twenty-seven as Liberal, the remainder as being either " neutral " or " independent " in respect of politics. The aggregate number of provincial newspapers in England and Wales was in the year 1782, 50 ; in 1795, 72 ; in 1846, 228 ; in 1866, 773; in 1868, 797; in 1870, 848; in 1872, 948; in 1874, 973 ; in 1876, 1047 ; in 1878, 1075 ; in 1879, 1088 ; in 1880, 1130 ; in 1881, 1163 ; in 1883, 1219. In respect of political character the 1163 papers of 1881 have been approximately classified thus : Liberal, 385 ; Conservative, 302 ; neutral or independent, 476. The first newspaper purporting by its title to be Scottish (The Scotch Intelligencer, 3 7th September 1643) and the first newspaper actually printed in Scotland (Mercurius Politicus, published at Leith in October 1653) were both of English manufacture, the one being intended to communicate more particularly the affairs of Scotland to the Londoners, the other to keep Cromwell s army well acquainted with the London news. The reprinting of the Politicus was transferred to Edinburgh in November 1654, and it continued to appear (under the altered title Mercurius Publicus subsequently to April 1660) until the beginning of 1663. Meanwhile an attempt 1 Journals of the House of Commons, xix. 30, 43, 1718. 2 Mr Grant (Newspaper Press, vol. iii. p. 193) says, very singu larly : " Though printed in Birkenhead, the Mercurius Aulicus was not published there. It was avowedly printed for a bookseller near Queen s College, Oxford. . . . Unfortunately there are no copies in the British Museum." The set of Mercurius Aulicus in the British Museum is, however, very complete, and has some useful MS. notes of dates, but no mention of any "Birkenhead," except the stout old cavalier Sir John. 3 This was followed by The Scotch Dove, the first number of which is dated "September 30 to October 20, 1643," and by The Scottish Mercury (No. 1, October 5, 1643). In 1648 a Mercurius Scoticus and a Mercurius Caledonius were published in London. The Scotch Dove was the only one of these which attained a lengthened existence. by Thomas Sydserfe to establish a really Scottish newspaper, Mercurius Caledonius, had failed after the appearance often numbers, the first of which had been published at Edinburgh on the 8th of January 1660. It was not until March 1699 that a Scottish news paper was firmly established, under the title of The Edinburgh Gazette, by James Watson, a printer of eminent skill in his art. 4 Before the close of the year The Gazette was transferred to John Reid, by whose family it long continued to be printed. In February 1705 Watson started The Edinburgh Courant, of which he only published fifty-five numbers. He states it to be his plan to give "most of the remarkable foreign news from their prints, and also the home news from the ports of this kingdom, .... now altogether neglected." The Courant appeared thrice a week. Upon complaint being made to the privy council concerning an advertisement inserted after the transfer of the paper to Adam Boig, the new printer presented a supplication to the council in which he expressed his willingness "that in all time coming no inland news or advertisements shall be put into the Courant, but at the sight and allowance of the clerks of council." In 1710 the town council authorized Mr Daniel Defoe to print The Edin burgh Courant in the place of the deceased Adam Boig. Four years earlier the indefatigable pioneer of the Scottish press, James Watson, had begun the Scots Courant, which he continued to print until after the year 1718. To these papers were added in October 1708 The Edinburgh Flying Post and in August 1709 The Scots Post-man. Five years later this paper appears to have been incor porated with The Edinburgh Gazette, and the publication ap peared twice a week, as it still continues to do in 1883, as the Government gazette for Scotland. The Caledonian Mercury began April 28, 1720. At one period it was published thrice and after wards twice a week. Its first proprietor was William Rolland, an advocate, and its first editor Thomas Ruddiman. The property passed to Ruddiman on Rolland s death in 1729, and remained in his family until 1772. It is curious to notice that in his initiatory number of April 1720, Rolland claimed a right to identify his Mer cury with that of 1660. This journal, he said in his preface to the public, "is the oldest [existing] in Great Britain." And his suc cessor of the year 1860 followed suit by celebrating the "second centenary " of The Caledonian Mercury. He brought out a fac simile of No. 1 of Mercurius Caledonius (January 1660), in its eight pages of small quarto, curiously contrasting with the great double sheet of the day. But sixty years is a long period of suspended animation, and the connexion of the two newspapers cannot be proved to be more than nominal. The Caledonian Mercury was the first of Scottish journals to give conspicuous place to literature foreign as well as Scottish. In " the 45" one of its editors, Thomas Ruddiman, junior, virtually sacrificed his life, 5 and the other, James Grant, went into exile, for the expression of conscientious political opinion. Its publication ceased after an existence of more than one hundred and forty years. Notwithstanding the positive assertion 6 that The Edinburgh Courant and The Edinburgh Evening Courant "were entirely different journals, and never had any connexion whatever with each other," the proprietors of the existing Courant assert a substantial identity, and obviously upon better grounds than those for which identity used to be claimed for The Caledonian Mercury with Mcr- curius Caledonius. The grant by the town council of Edinburgh in December 1718 of a licence to James M Ewan to print an Evening Courant three times a week appears to have been really a revival, in altered form, of the original Courant, repeatedly referred to in earlier, but not much earlier, records of the same corporation. So revived, The Evening Courant was the first Scottish paper to give foreign intelligence from original sources, instead of repeating the advices sent to London. In 1780 David Ramsay became its pro prietor. Under his management it is said to have attained the largest Scottish circulation of its day. It was then of neutral politics. Of late years, returning to its original title, and appearing as a daily morning paper, it has ranked as the senior organ of the Conservative party in Scotland. 4 Watson was the printer and editor, but the person licensed was Jarnes Donaldson, merchant in Edinburgh ("Act in favors of James Donaldson for printing the Gazette" March 10, 1699, published in Miscellany of the Maitland Club, ii. 232 sq.). Arnot, in his History of Edinburgh, mentions as the second of Edinburgh newspapers intervening between Mercurius Caledonius and the Gazette a King doms Intelligencer. But this was a London newspaper, dating from 1662, which may occasionally have been reprinted in Scotland ; no such copies, however, are now known to exist. In like manner The Scottish Mercury, No. 1, May 8, 1692, appears to have been a London newspaper based upon Scottish news-letters, although in an article written in 1848, in the Scottish Journal of Topography, vol. ii. p. 303, it is mentioned as an Edinburgh newspaper. 5 During an imprisonment of six weeks in the Tolbooth of Edin burgh his health suffered so severely that he died very shortly after . his release. 6 Grant, History of the Newspaper Press, 1873, iii. 412.
