Daily Chronicle

The Daily Chronicle was a British newspaper that was published from 1872 to 1930 when it merged with the Daily News to become the News Chronicle.

The Daily Chronicle was developed by Edward Lloyd out of a local newspaper that had started life as the Clerkenwell News and Domestic Intelligencer, set up as a halfpenny 4-page weekly in 1855.

Launched after the duties on advertising and published news had been abolished in 1853 and July 1855, this local paper specialised in small personal ads. At first, it carried about three times as much advertising as it did local news.

As the formula proved popular, it grew in size and frequency and often changed its name to match. In 1872, it finally changed from the London Daily Chronicle and Clerkenwell News to plain Daily Chronicle. It was then being published daily in eight pages, half of which were news and half advertising.

Edward Lloyd was keenly interested in advertising. It had the potential to generate substantial income and so allow the paper's cover price to be kept low. In time it contributed about 40% of Chronicle revenues. Demand was strong enough to charge a good price per line but, even so, advertising had to be limited to no more than half the paper. The lobby at 81 Fleet Street served as an informal labour exchange where advertisers and targets would search each other out in person.

Lloyd bought the paper in 1876, paying the owner £30,000 for the title and spending a further £150,000 on setting it up (about £19m in modern money). The Fleet Street office cost a further £40,000 a few years later.

Only a small circle knew about his plan and the public was taken by surprise when it appeared in national daily guise on 28 May 1877. They clearly liked what they read and the new paper was a success from the start. It had inherited a circulation of about 40,000 in 1877 and this rose to 200,000 in a year. It had risen to 400,000 by the outbreak of war in 1914 and doubled during the war. It was reputedly the best selling daily in the 1890s and, during the war, sold more copies than the Times, Telegraph, Morning Post, Evening Standard and Daily Graphic combined.

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