The Guardian

The Guardian, British newspaper, founded in 1821 as the Manchester Guardian by John Edward Taylor, a parliamentary reformist, journalist, and Quaker who associated with other Nonconformist, political liberals in Manchester. It was renamed The Guardian in 1959.

Taylor’s weekly Manchester Guardian was funded by textile merchants similarly radicalized by the Corn Laws and Peterloo Massacre (which Taylor had attended and reported on). Despite the 7d price, circulation increased steadily and the newspaper spread to other cities besides Manchester. By 1825 it was selling 3,000 copies a week and was read by many more people in reading rooms. When stamp duty was reduced in 1836 the paper increased in size and became bi-weekly, and then weekly in 1855 when the duty was finally lifted. Taylor was editor until he died in 1844; his son, also John Taylor, ran the London office and became the paper’s new owner.

Under the 57-year editorship of Charles Prestwich Scott (cousin to John Taylor) the Manchester Guardian earned national and international respect, beginning in 1871 with its coverage of both sides of the Franco-Prussian War. However, when Scott strongly opposed the Boer War sales fell and public hostility was such that his house and the newspaper premises needed police protection.

After Taylor’s death in 1905 Scott raised £242,000 to buy the newspaper, pledging to maintain its founding principles and independence. Upon its centenary he wrote: “Comment is free, but facts are sacred... The voice of opponents no less than that of friends has a right to be heard.” He retired in 1929 and his sons John Russell Scott and Edward Taylor Scott took over as manager and editor respectively. When E. T. Scott died in 1932 the death duties on inheriting the paper led J. R. Scott to hand ownership to a board of trustees. Thereafter, the Scott Trust ensured the paper’s founding principles and financial stability.

William Perceival Crozier was editor from 1932 to 1944, followed by Alfred Powell Wadsworth until 1956 when Alastair Hetherington took over the position. Due to its idiosyncratic news agenda, moral standpoint, and commercial naivety the paper was still considered a regional newspaper, but under Hetherington in 1959 it was renamed The Guardian to reflect its increasing coverage of national and international news, and the editor’s office and other editorial departments moved to London in 1964.

Under the editorship of Peter Preston (1975-1995) The Guardian was increasingly seen as the paper of the left, and a forum for the Labour Party—and from 1981 the emergent Social Democratic Party—in editorials and letters. The interests of the newspaper were expanded when it bought the respected Sunday broadsheet The Observer in 1993. The Guardian Unlimited website was launched in 1999. The Guardian converted from broadsheet to the smaller “Berliner” mid-size European format in September 2005.