The Growth of a National Press

Abstract

There can be no doubt, on any definition, that by the 1890s the British press operated on a national scale. First of all it was true in respect of the numbers of titles in existence and their circulation: in 1892 there were seventy-four daily morning and eighty-five daily evening papers in the United Kingdom. Every town of any size had probably two (one for each party) and possibly four dailies, morning and evening, providing national and international news, as well as the advertisements and news of its own circulation area. Though the circulations of these might be very small by modern standards, their combined effect would have been massive, and a good proportion of the population would have seen a paper (not necessarily bought one), or at any rate spoken to someone who had read that day’s news.