Politics, Religion and Money: How The Print Industry Boom Really Started
How William of Orange and John Locke played their part in building an industry
I’m proud to say that I’ve been listening to the BBC’s In Our Time for more than a decade, well before Goalhanger’s The Rest is History came on the scene and somehow made a booming business out of the past (check-out Bloomberg’s recent feature here).
I actually got into IOT because it was one of the few programmes which featured philosophy – PhilosophyBites being the other one. Nowadays, there are countless podcasts claiming to cover the ‘love of wisdom’, as the Ancient Greeks used to call it, to varying degrees of success and credibility.
Anyway, IOT, which is still hosted by Melvyn Bragg and still features three academic guests, is still stubbornly covering the history of ideas despite the hyper-competitive environment it now finds itself in. This is taxpayer-funded broadcasting at its finest (on that note, do also look up Bryan Magee’s The Great Philosophers series when you have a chance).
But despite IOT’s colossal depth and breadth, with the programme first airing in 1998, the shows are limited to just 45 minutes, with some “extra time” of around 15 minutes allotted to the podcast edition. Here, the academic guests are given the opportunity to discuss any additional information which may have been missed during the main discussion.
Inevitably, much is missed, but Bragg, his production team and the academics usually provide a solid primer for any given historical or philosophical topic. That was nearly the case for IOT’s latest episode, covering The Hanoverian succession of the early 18th Century (link).
One of the academic guests, the University of Liverpool’s Professor Elaine Chalus, rightly mentioned that the period marked the popularisation of the press in England (and, by extension, its colonies and dominions, including those in North America).
But whether it was through lack of time or knowledge, Chalus failed to explain how the liberalisation of the news media came about, whilst missing out on some important dates in the history of journalism.
Though Chalus mentioned the publication of the first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant in 1702, and the rise of regional outlets, she failed to acknowledge that the first newspapers came in 1695, with the introduction of The Post-Boy, The Post-Man and Flying Post in London.
Provincial titles, including those in Bristol and Worcester, took their names. Before 1695, The London Gazette, which was first established in 1665 and was initially called the Oxford Gazette because Charles II’s court had moved up the Thames to avoid the Plague, had the ‘official’ monopoly on news and only certain areas, including London, Oxford and Cambridge, were free to have print presses.
I use the term ‘official’ deliberately because there were rogue publishers in operation. In 1690, for example, Benjamin Harris was able to print America’s first newspaper, Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick, in Boston. He got one edition away before it was suppressed
Likewise, some entrepreneurial publishers were able to use print houses in Glasgow and Edinburgh to skirt past the regulations in England and get their products transported back south of Hadrian’s Wall.
The real turning point for the nascent industry came in 1687 and 1688 when William of Orange launched his campaign for the English throne. Propaganda was a major part of the ‘Glorious Revolution’.
The Dutch monarch did not want to be seen as a foreign invader, instead he claimed that the protestant gentry of England had invited him to replace the Roman Catholic ruler James II.
William III achieved this by publishing his own manifesto, his Declaration of Reasons, to justify his actions. He wanted the word to spread before he landed in Devon in November 1688 and that meant relying on rogue English publishers.
John White of York was one of the most notable rebels. He was subsequently rewarded for his loyalty after William had successfully deposed James II, who had fled to France. White became “their Majesties printer for the city of York and the five Northern counties” and went on to publish the first newspapers in the region.
The next notable action, or lack of it, came in 1695 when Parliament decided not to renew the Licensing Act. The legislation gave the Stationers’ Company ultimate control over what could be and couldn’t be published in England
.The Whigs, who had supported the overthrow of James II and had been engaged in various pamphlet wars with the pro-Stuart Monarchy Tories over the past decades, were able to defeat the Act.
John Locke in particular played an important part in the legislation’s downfall, successfully arguing against the Stationers' Company monopoly which had resulted in fewer books and higher prices.
“I know not why a man should not have liberty to print whatever he would speak; and to be answerable for the one, just as he is for the other, if he transgresses the law in either. But gagging a man, for fear he should print heresy or sedition, has no other ground than such as will make chains necessary.” – Locke.
Though the Licensing Act was able to expire and pre-publication censorship was thwarted, that didn’t mean publishers could write what they wanted. Libel and seditious libel laws were still in force after 1695 and they carried heavy penalties, including imprisonment.
As Locke said himself, you would still have to be “answerable” for what you printed (as I’ve written extensively elsewhere, the next century would see Thomas Jefferson build on Locke and take speech freedoms to the next level in his campaign against John Adams).
The nascent news press of the early 18th Century also faced high taxes and major logistical issues. Trains still weren’t a thing and a well-maintained road network wouldn’t come until the late 1700s thanks to the Turnpike trusts, a series of locally-run bodies which charged tolls to help pay for and upkeep stretches of road.
It wasn’t uncommon for the original provincial postmen to go missing or even die whilst attempting to deliver the news. This was especially true during the depths of an English winter or when roads had flooded.
In spite of these multifaceted challenges, the news press thrived in major port cities like Bristol and Norwich and by 1723 there were at least 24 provincial papers in England (link).
A more literate populace, the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of party politics, with the Tories and Whigs sponsoring their own publications (more on the Town versus the Country Whigs here), also catalysed the rise of the news media.
Thanks to the Stamp Act and the revenues it generated for the government, we can estimate that more than 7.3 million newspaper copies were in annual circulation by 1753. That number rose to 9.4 million in 1760 and then it increased again to 11.3 million in 1767.
By the end of the century, newspapers no longer faced a perilous future. They were ingrained into society and the new print culture helped the 13 American colonies split from Great Britain. It’s no coincidence that the Franklins learnt the printing trade in Hanoverian London.
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