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The Daily News was a UK national daily newspaper published from 1846 until 1930, a total of 34,700 issues.[1] It was founded as a Liberal rival to the Morning Chronicle by the author Charles Dickens, who acted as its editor for the first seventeen issues before handing over to the barrister and journalist John Forster (1812–1876).[2] Although by then in ill health, Dickens continued to contribute an occasional “Italian Letter”.[3] Harriet Martineau, Douglas Jerrold, Sir Edward Strachey and G. K. Chesterton were among other leading reformist writers who wrote for the newspaper during its heyday.[1]
Priced at 5d, the newspaper was initially a commercial failure, despite halving its price to 2½d. But its circulation gradually increased from 1849, and the abolition of newspaper taxesLong-running campaign against duties on newspapers, their advertising content and the paper they were printed on. allowed the price to be reduced to 1d in 1868.[1]
Among the causes championed by the newspaper were the North in the American Civil War (1861–1865), the cause of Italian independence during 1859–1860, and the emancipation of Bulgaria from Turkish rule from 1876–1880.[4] By the end of the 19th century the paper was able to boast “the largest circulation of any Liberal Paper in the world”, with a peak circulation of 93,000 copies in 1890.[1]
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The Daily News was bought in 1901 by the Quaker and chocolate manufacturer George Cadbury. Disgusted by the imperialist policy of the Unionist Government dominated by Joseph Chamberlain, he used the paper to campaign against the Boer War (1899–1902), sweatshop labour, and for old-age pensions.[5] The newspaper did however refuse to condemn the force-feeding of suffragettes in 1909, which resulted in the resignation of the campaigning journalist H. N. Brailsford, a founding member of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage.[6]
In 1912 The Daily News was merged with the Morning Leader to form the Daily News and Leader. Following that publication’s merger with the Westminster Gazette in 1928 it was renamed The Daily News and Westminster Gazette, which two years later was amalgamated with the Daily Chronicle to form the News Chronicle.[2]
Editors
- 1846: Charles Dickens
- 1846: John Forster
- 1849: Eyre Evans Crowe
- 1851: Frederick Knight Hunt
- 1854: William Weir
- 1858: Thomas Walker
- 1869: Edward Dicey
- 1870: Frank Harrison Hill
- 1886: Sir Henry Lucy
- 1887: Sir John Richard Robinson
- 1896: Edward Tyas Cook
- 1901: Rudolph Chambers Lehmann
- 1902: Alfred George Gardiner
- 1921: Stuart Hodgson
- 1926: Tom Clarke