SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS The rise of the Sunday newspapers in the last twelve years is alluded to elsewhere. Here it may be noted that the historic Sun day newspapers, unlike some of the historic daily newspapers, show great vitality.
The Observer, which is the most poweiful political organ of the Sunday newspapers, first saw the light in the year 1791, a period when France had entered upon a revolution which was to shake the foundations of Europe and change the course of history. The Observer reported the battle of Trafalgar, 1805, without headlines and ten years later Wellington's dispatch on the Battle of Waterloo as if it were the heading of a parliamentary Blue Book. The Observer kept on its respectable but somewhat sombre career until it was acquired by Lord Astor and edited by J. L. Garvin, when it assumed a distinctive character, a virile inde pendence in its political outlook while it made a strong feature of foreign correspondence, literature, the drama, etc.
The Sunday Times, another historic Sunday newspaper which was founded in 1822, is parallel with the Observer except that it is more moderate and consistent in its political outlook, but there is not much to choose between the two newspapers in regard to their general features. The Sunday Times is notable in respect that it laid the foundations of the Berry family in the newspaper world. It was the first general newspaper acquired by Sir William Berry, who bought it in 1915. He has exercised a particular con trol over it. The editor is (1929) Leonard Rees.
Another old Sunday newspaper is Lloyd's Weekly News, now known as the Sunday News, started by Edward Lloyd in 1842. A year later the News of the World was founded. During the last 20 years it has become the most widely circulated of all news papers. Reynolds Illustrated Newspaper, a democratic organ, was started in 185o, and the People (Conservative), in 1881.
The two Sunday picture papers are the Sunday Pictorial and the Sunday Graphic. The other Sunday papers vary in the degree to which they cater for the masses by sensational news, crime stories, prizes, competitions, coupons, etc. The Sunday Dispatch (formerly the Weekly Dispatch) and the Sunday Express are somewhat similar in type and less popular in their appeal than other journals which exceed them in sale, headed by the News of the World, which has a sale of nearly four millions, the People, the Empire News. Other most widely circulated Sunday papers are the Sunday Chronicle and the Sunday News. A develop ment since the war has been provincial Sunday newspapers out side Manchester, the home of the Sunday Chronicle and the Empire News, such as the Sunday Sun, Newcastle, the Sunday Post, Glasgow, the Sunday Mercury, Birmingham, and the Sunday Sentinel, Stafford. The aggregate sale of all the Sunday news papers is estimated to be 16,000,000.