Berrow's Worcester Journal
| The world's oldest newspaper: Established 1690 | |
Berrow's Worcester Journal Header
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| Type | Weekly Freesheet Newspaper (Thursday) |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner(s) |
Newsquest Media Group Subsidiary of Gannett |
| Founded | 1690 |
| Headquarters | Berrow's House Hylton Road Worcester WR2 5JX. |
| City | Worcester |
| Country | England, UK |
| Circulation | 39905 (as of December 2014 - January 2016) |
| Sister newspapers | Worcester News |
| OCLC number | 31683341 |
| Free online archives | http://www.berrowsjournal.co.uk |
Berrow's Worcester Journal is a weekly freesheet tabloid newspaper, owned by Newsquest, and delivered to homes across central and southern Worcestershire, including the towns of Bromyard, Droitwich, Pershore and Upton-upon-Severn as well as the city of Worcester.
Worcester was one of the earliest location in Britain to have a printing press where its first press was established in 1548 (about 100 years after Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type) and set up by who printed several books on it between 1548 and 1553.
The first established records of a Worcester newspaper date from 1690 when Stephen Bryan founded the Worcester Post-Man, which has been published ever since, although its name changed to the Worcester Journal and then to the current name Berrow's Worcester Journal, thus laying claim to being the oldest newspaper in the world in continuous and current production.
Local news was relatively rare in the first decade of publication and it was published irregularly from 1690 until 1709, the period following the deposing of James II (& VII) after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which had seen the beginning of a free press in this country. After about 1720 Bryan began to include more local items. In the time that Bryan owned the paper it was published on Fridays.
In April 1748, Bryan sold the paper to Harvey Berrow who changed its name to The Worcester Journal and its publication day to Thursday.
From 11 October 1753 the paper was published as Berrow's Worcester Journal.
This final name change was prompted when a competitor, Richard Lewis, tried to profit from the success of the Worcester Journal by launching the similar-sounding New Worcester Journal. Lewis's other efforts to take market share from the older paper included publishing on Wednesdays (the day before Berrow) and circulating a report in Bewdley, Kidderminster, and Stourbridge that Berrow's newsmen had left his service.
Berrow was the third son of Capel Berrow (died 1751), a clergyman, and younger brother of Capel Berrow the writer, and was an apothecary in Peterborough. This was not unusual during this time as early newspaper proprietors would sell medicines alongside their newspapers. Berrow promoted in his paper his elixir for dropsy and his powder for gout. The paper was sold for 2½d every week with five pages.
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