BRITISH PROVINCIAL PRESS The first provincial paper in England was the weekly Worcester Postman, 1690, now Berrow's Worcester Journal. In the first twenty years of the 18th century a number of other journals sprang up in country towns, practically all of them being weekly journals. Among them were the Stamford Mercury begun in 1713 and the Northampton Mercury begun in 1720. At the beginning of the i9th century the provincial press consisted of less than a hundred journals, as compared with many thousands at the pres ent day. They were at that time practically without influence and presented a minimum of local news without expressing any views.
Benjamin Flower, printer of the Cambridge Intelligencer, who in 1799 was haled before the House of Lords for breach of privilege in commenting upon some action by a bishop, fined foo and sent to Newgate for six months, was the first to introduce the leading article in the provincial press. The Leeds Mercury, founded in 1717, under the control of Edward Baines (18o1) be came the most important and influential of the north country papers in the first half of the i9th century. For many years it admitted neither theatrical nor racing matter to its columns until the sentiment of its readers in Lancashire and Yorkshire under went a change in regard to these forms of amusement. After the Reform Act of 1830 and the contemporaneous spread of self education and establishment of reading circles and newspaper clubs, the country newspapers developed in importance and use fulness, being forced to assuage the public thirst for information and instruction. It was not however till the final removal of the taxes on knowledge, already described, that the provincial press came into its own, and from being strictly local organs began to show almost as large an interest in affairs of national importance as their London contemporaries.
Within ten years of the abolition of the paper duty penny morning newspapers had taken up commanding positions in Edin burgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen; in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Newcastle and Sheffield; in Birmingham and Nottingham ; in Bristol, Cardiff and Plymouth ; and across St.
George's Channel in Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Waterford. But any real importance as organs of opinion was still confined to only a few of the great penny provincial dailies, notably the York shire Post, Manchester Guardian, Birmingham Post (1857), She Telegraph (associated with Sir W. Leng), Liverpool Daily
Post, Leeds Mercury and Western Morning News; others too nu merous to mention here were at the same time cradling journalists who were to become famous in a larger sphere, such as the Dar lington Northern Echo, on which W. T. Stead made his debut, while Joseph Cowen for some years made the Newcastle Daily Chronicle a powerful force.
In the early 'seventies such a thing as a full telegraphic report in a provincial morning newspaper of parliamentary proceedings, or of a speech by a leading statesman, was almost unheard of. The Press Association had not then covered the country with its organization. Reuter's foreign news service very briefly reported important events. Between 1870 and 188o a complete revolution was effected, as the result of social and educational changes. News papers that had been content to fill their columns with local news and clippings from London and distant provincial papers put such matter aside. Telegraphic news crushed it out. When in Feb. 1870 the government took over the telegraph system, and gave special terms for press messages, English and Irish newspapers, following Scotland's lead, began to open offices in London with special wires. The Press Association spread its news-collecting organization over the whole country, and was stimulated to ac tivity by the rising opposition of the Central News. The universal use of news agency messages tended to a uniformity from which the more enterprising journals saved themselves by special London letters, parliamentary sketches and other exclusive contributions. In 1881 the reporters' gallery in the House of Commons was opened to some provincial newspapers. The first syndicate to send out war correspondents was formed by the Glasgow News, the Liverpool Daily Post, Manchester Courier, Birmingham Gazette and Western Morning News, who despatched two correspondents to Egypt. The Central News also sent out war correspondents to Egypt and the Sudan. During the South African War (1899 1902) the leading provincial newspapers, however, all formed syndicates amongst themselves to secure war telegrams, and in many cases made arrangements for the simultaneous publication of the letters and telegrams of leading London journals.