The Newspaper World/Chapter 1
THE NEWSPAPER WORLD.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN OF BRITISH NEWSPAPERS TO THE ABOLITION OF THE CENSORSHIP.
1622-1695.
For almost all that keeps up in us, permanently and effectually, the spirit of regard to liberty and the public good, we must look to the unshackled and independent energies of the press.—Hallam.
LOOKING back over the last two centuries and a half of this country's history, there are few features in our national progress which can be regarded with more unmixed satisfaction than the growth of the Press, on whose unshackled energies Hallam tells us we must rely for almost the only effectual stimulus to public spirit. In spite of restrictions of the most vexatious and crushing character, the Newspaper Press of England, taken as a whole, has ever been honorably conspicuous in its efforts to stimulate "the spirit of regard to liberty and the public good." Even though too often used as a mere weapon of partizan warfare, and too frequently marked by the imperfections and prejudices of its conductors, yet the important fact remains that much of the religious, moral, political, fiscal, and social reform of our country has become, through the Press, not merely known to the great mass of Englishmen, but actively propagated, and, by the force of public opinion thus stimulated, brought to a successful issue. In attempting to describe in a compendious fashion the origin and growth of an institution so important, it is hardly possible to do other than take the readei over a well-trodden road, but the effort shall at least be made to point out milestones of progress hitherto, it ma> be, overlooked, while essaying to give a clear view of thd* striking features observable in each stage of the onward journey.
It was a century and a half after William Caxton set up the first printing press in England that Nathaniel Butter printed the first weekly newspaper. News was probably disseminated by means of the printing press some time earlier, but not generally by private enterprise. In Queen Elizabeth's time, for example, the Government seems to have distributed printed intelligence about the defeat of the Spanish Armada, but private effort in this direction was practically stifled. As Macaulay tells us, "No man could print without a licence; and every work had to undergo the scrutiny of the Primate or of the Bishop of London." There was the same desire for news among Englishmen of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as is to be found in all ranks of society in the present day, and the demand was met by the circulation of written news-letters sent from London to the country, and containing all the information that the writers were able to gather at the coffee-houses and other places of public resort. Nathaniel Butter, who was one of these news writers, almost at the close of the reign of the first Stuart monarch, conceived the idea of printing his newsletters. In all probability he did this at first experimentally and at irregular intervals, but in 1622, under the title of The Certaine News of the Present Week, he commenced a weekly journal with numbered issues. Some of these small early newspapers were partly printed sheets, with a blank portion left for private communications. A forerunner of the large family of Flying Posts was thus announced:
If any gentleman has a wish to oblige his country friend or correspondent with his account of public affairs, he may have it for two-pence, of J. Salisbury, at the Rising Sun in Cornhill, on a sheet of fine paper, half of which being blank; he may there write his own private business, or the material news of the day.
Nathaniel Butter, as the father of our English newspapers, deserves to rank next to Caxton in the honorable roll of names associated with the English press. In the seventeenth century the rulers in Church and State were not favorable to the free circulation of information or the free expression of opinion. Some courage must have been required to start the first newspaper in the time of the Star Chamber, and when the penalties likely to be exacted on the person of an offending printer were whipping, the pillory, imprisonment, degradation of various kinds, mutilation, and even death. Periodical publications of a political character, which could not probably in most cases be designated newspapers, appeared in profusion during the stormy days of Charles I., and ran the gauntlet of censorship and prohibitive regulations with more or less success. During the Commonwealth the censorship was rigorously exercised, and there was not that freedom of tjie Press which some writers have claimed. One feature about the early days of the Press must, however, be noted. For rather more than thirty years after newspapers began, they had no advertisements. Mr James Grant discovered the first advertisement in the Commonwealth Mercury for November 25th, 1658—just after Cromwell's death. This paper inserted advertisements at "the extremely moderate price of 1½d. and 2d. a line!" With the commencement of advertising we may imagine that the Newspaper Press was beginning to attain a general circulation, and was regarded as a useful and convenient vehicle for public announcements.
Before. the English Press had completed the first halfcentury of its existence, its growing importance attracted the attention of the Government of the day, and two years after the restoration of Charles II., namely in 1662, a Licensing Act was passed which for many years silenced the Press of England as effectually as the Russian Press, is silenced in the present day when it falls under the displeasure of the censorship. Not only was the Press ruthlessly crushed, but the Government and the censor between them took full advantage of their power to become practically the only newspaper proprietors in the kingdom. The censor was Sir Roger l'Estrange, who had been himself previously connected with the Press, and what could be more natural than that, having put down the newspapers, he should start, some two or three years after the Act was enforced, his own Public Intelligencer. But the censor met with competition from an unexpected quarter. In 1665 the Court was temporarily removed to Oxford on account of the Plague of London, and here the Government started its own gazette, which was afterwards reprinted in London. This newspaper has enjoyed an uninterrupted existence since the year named, as the London Gazette.[1] Macaulay, describing the Government organ, tells us that, "whatever was communicated to it was in the most meagre and formal style," but we may suppose that the high sanction of its contents gave it an importance to which even Sir Roger's publication, that had but a short career, could not pretend. Besides the London Gazette there is but one other newspaper in England which can lay claim to a history going back to the seventeenth century. This is a bi-weekly paper, practically unknown to the general public; and, like its elder contemporary, is destitute of the attractive features of the modern newspaper. It is entitled the Course of the Exchange, was started in 1697, and is still the official organ of the Stock Exchange.[2]
After being enforced for seventeen years, the Licensing Act was allowed to expire in 1679. Six years later, however, when James II. came to the throne, the law was revived, and continued for another ten years, so that it was in force at the time of the Revolution and for some years of the reign of William and Mary. In 1695 the country grew tired of a muzzled Press, and the law was abolished. Some politicians, however, still hankered after the censorship, but Hallam states that "the less courtly Whigs combined with the Tories and Jacobites to defeat " the resuscitation of the censorship. Sir Roger l'Estrange, who for almost a generation had persecuted the English Press by the infliction of brutal punishments, happily long since obsolete, met with poetic justice. He was himself sent to Newgate about this time for giving publicity to treasonable papers, and ended his life ignobly.
Notes
[edit]- ↑ The London Gazette is the most profitable of the newspapers owned by the nation, yielding at the present time a revenue of from £16,000 to £17,000 yearly. Its editorship at a salary of £800 was formerly given to some gentleman connected with the Press who had done important party service to the Government of the day. Mr Gladstone last exercised the patronage in 1869. Mr Thomas Walker, who had been editor of the Daily News for a long period, was then appointed, and continued to hold the position till the end of 1888, when he resigned, and the post was abolished under the Stationery Office re-organization scheme. During the railway mania, the London Gazette was published daily in the month of November, 1846. The largest number of the official organ ever published was on the 15th of the month named. It consisted of 583 pages and was printed on 145 sheets.
- ↑ The Edinburgh Gazette was established 1699-1700. For accurate information on the dates of early newspapers, see the chronological list, annotated, in "May's Press Guide."