Thus the i8th century saw the gradual development of the purely political journal side by side with those papers which were primarily devoted to news, domestic and foreign, and commerce. It was left to Steele and Addison (q.v.) to develop the social side of journalism in their journals named above which have found a permanent place in English literature. Nor must we omit Dr. Johnson's 2d. bi-weekly, the Rambler, started in 175o, and his weekly, the Idler (1758). In 1761 the North Briton came out and it was largely due to Wilkes' determined fight for the liberty of the press (see WILKES, JOHN) that at length the last shackles on free expression of opinion in Britain were cut away, and by 1772 the right to pub lish parliamentary reports had been established.
The outstanding daily paper in the middle of the i8th century was the Public Advertiser, which for some 25 years had been called the General Advertiser (and for some time the London Daily Post). It was published with notable success by Henry Woodfall and his son Henry Samson Woodfall, and it was in this paper that appeared the famous Letters of Junius (q.v.), which have been attributed to Philip Francis. These papers led to a marked increase in its circulation, the monthly sale in Dec. 1771 being close on 84,000 as compared with 47,500 seven years previously. But in I 798 it was merged in the Public Ledger.
In 1769 William Woodfall started the Morning Chronicle, whose daily circulation in 1819 reached 4,000, and in 1843, at a time when Dickens was a contributor, 6.000. But in another six years the circulation had fallen to 3.00o. For some five years it became the property of the duke of Newcastle, Mr. Gladstone, and others, but finally ended insolvent, after a life of over ninety years. Another longlived daily paper, whose top circulation was about 6,000, was the Morning Herald (1781 1869). Two other important dailies were started in the i8th century which still exist, the Morning Post and The Times; these are dealt with later, together with the Morning Advertiser, founded in 1794. It was William Cobbett (q.v.) who first at tempted to reach the masses by his pen, and reduced the price of his Weekly Political Register from i s.—old. to twopence in his endeavour to appeal to the working classes for support of those principles of parliamentary reform dear to his heart. In i8o8 Leigh Hunt brought out the Examiner whose frank criticism of the prince regent landed him and a brother in gaol. This weekly journal had quite a long lease of life and excelled in dramatic criticism, besides giving an excellent review of the events of the week in all branches of public affairs.
The development of the press was enormously assisted by the gradual abolition of the "taxes on knowledge," and also by the introduction of a cheap postal system. In 1756 an additional halfpenny was added to the tax of 1712. In 1765 and in 1773 various restrictive regulations were imposed. In 1789 the three-halfpence was increased to twopence, in 1798 to twopence-halfpenny, in 1804 to threepence halfpenny, and in 1815 to fourpence, less a discount of 20%. As prosecutions multiplied, and the penalties became more serious, revolutionary tendencies increased in a still greater ratio. Blas phemy was added to sedition. Penny and halfpenny journals were established which dealt exclusively with narratives of gross vice and crime. Between 1831 and 1835 hundreds of unstamped news papers made their appearance. The political tone of most of them was fiercely revolutionary. Prosecution followed prosecution; but all failed to suppress the obnoxious publications.
To Bulwer Lytton, the novelist and politician (Lord Lytton, q.v.), and subsequently to Milner Gibson and Richard Cobden, is chiefly due the credit of grappling with this question in the House of Commons in a manner which secured first the reduction of the tax to a penny in 1836, and then its total abolition in 1855. The number of newspapers established from the early part of 1855, when the repeal of the duty had become a certainty, and continuing in existence at the beginning of 1857, amounted to io7; 26 were metropolitan and 81 provincial. The duties on paper itself were finally abolished in 1861.
The abolition of the stamp taxes brought about such reductions in the prices of newspapers that they speedily began to reach the many instead of the few. Some idea of the extent of the tax on knowledge imposed in the early 19th century may be gathered from the fact that the number of stamps issued in 182o was close on 29,400,00o, and the incidence of the advertisement tax.
fixed at 3s. 6d. in 1804, made it impossible for the newspaper owner to pass on the stamp tax to the advertiser, as is done nowadays with regard to all commodities of popular consumption. In 1828 the proprietors of The Times had to pay the State over 168,000 in stamp and advertisement taxes and pa,per duty. But after the reduction of the stamp tax in 1836 from 4d. to id. the circulation of English newspapers, based on the stamp returns, rose from 39,000,000 to 122,000,000 in 1854.