Times, The

Times, The, the oldest surviving British daily newspaper. On January 1, 1785, John Walter began the paper as the Daily Universal Register to promote the new logography typesetting system he had acquired. It was a daily advertising sheet, which also included parliamentary reports and foreign news; the first edition stated that the paper had no political affiliation. However, Walter soon realized that logography had not made an impact upon printing, but the newspaper itself could compete with the eight other London dailies. He negotiated a secret deal to publish news favourable to the government for £300 a year. In 1788 he changed the style and content (and included London scandal) to appeal to a wider audience, and the paper became The Times.

In 1803 his son, John Walter II, became proprietor and decided to run the paper free from government influence. He employed journalists who supported political reform, including Henry Crabbe Robinson and Thomas Barnes, with Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt as contributors. The paper began to gather its own news rather than relying on government releases, and during the Peninsular War, Crabbe Robinson became Britain’s first foreign correspondent. Walter II also expanded the paper from 4 to 12 pages, and in 1814 began The Times’ pioneering use of advanced technology, with the König steam-driven printing press.

In the same year Barnes took over from Dr John Stoddart as the editor, and went on to develop a strong, articulate, and independent paper, popularly known as the “Thunderer”, attracting contributions from Macaulay, Disraeli, Leigh Hunt, and George Borrow, and an offer from Coleridge to edit the paper. A sister weekly, the Sunday Times, was established with its own editorial staff in 1822. One of Barnes’ innovations was to extend the rigorous staff reporting to cover political meetings. Barnes was a moderate liberal, and after the Peterloo Massacre, The Times began to campaign for political and parliamentary reform. Although at sevenpence (due to a newspaper tax) the paper was too expensive for most people to buy, its availability in public reading rooms allowed The Times to influence opinion, and government ministers sought to secure its support.

After Barnes’ death in 1841, Walter II appointed the 23-year-old John Thadeus Delane as editor, and in 1847 Walter II was succeeded by his son, John Walter III. During Delane’s 46-year tenure, the paper became even more widely respected and influential, due to its in-depth journalism and meticulous accuracy. Circulation rose from 5,000 in 1815 to 40,000 in 1850. Delane believed that The Times should act in the national interest and be independent of political parties. He had contacts among the Whigs and Tories, and his friendship with the Earl of Aberdeen enabled The Times to be the first newspaper to announce government plans to repeal the Corn Laws. Napoleon III also sent the paper information, of which his ministers were unaware. Yet when Delane hired William Howard Russell as the world’s first war correspondent, Russell’s reports of the British Army’s blunders in the Crimean War contributed to the downfall of Lord Aberdeen’s government. However, towards the end of Delane’s editorship, and under the influence of the Walter family, the paper gradually became more conservative.

Thomas Chenery, formerly the Constantinople correspondent, became editor after Delane retired in 1877. Upon Chenery’s death in 1884, George Earle Buckle took over. Three years into his editorship, the paper was brought low by the publication of a forged letter purportedly written by Charles Parnell, and was suffering from competition with the penny press. In order to boost finances and circulation, and to restore its reputation, The Times began to advertise and sell the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

In 1898 the Walter family rejected the offer by Alfred Harmsworth to buy the paper, but in 1908 Harmsworth, by then Lord Northcliffe, purchased The Times for £320,000. The paper was losing money due to competition from halfpenny papers, and circulation had fallen to 38,000. Northcliffe re-equipped the outdated printing plant, reduced the price by a penny to twopence, and in 1912 appointed Geoffrey Dawson as editor. At the outbreak of World War I, The Times cost a penny and had a daily circulation of 278,000, but Northcliffe’s criticism of Lloyd George and Kitchener, and support for conscription caused controversy, and circulation fell again. The paper reduced its criticism of the government, and in 1918 Lord Beaverbrook asked Northcliffe to take control of British war propaganda. In 1919 Dawson was replaced by Henry Wickham Steed, the former foreign correspondent. After Northcliffe’s death in 1922, Dawson returned as editor from 1923 to 1941 and helped restore the paper’s influence.

Sir William Haley, previously the director-general of the BBC, continued this work from 1952 to 1967, instituting editorial and layout changes, making The Times widely respected. In 1966, news permanently replaced advertising on the front page. The typesetting and printing equipment was also updated, although this modernization was a factor in the strike that stopped publication from 1978 to 1979.

The Canadian press baron Roy Thomson, after acquiring the Sunday Times in 1959, went on to gain control of The Times in 1967, providing it with almost 15 years of financial stability. In 1981 Rupert Murdoch acquired The Times and The Sunday Times. Strikes occurred again in 1986 when he moved The Times’ premises to Wapping, London, and thousands of jobs were lost after he took on the powerful printers’ unions. His News International corporation also owns the The Times Educational Supplement, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Times Higher Education Supplement. Following the lead of The Independent, in 2003 The Times launched a tabloid version in London, and completed the switch from broadsheet to compact format nationwide in November 2004.