THE HISTORY OF THE EVENING NEWS

y INTRODUCTION y The information presented below has been organised

in the form of a timeline, detailing certain key events in the newspaper's history from 1881 to 1987. It is intended as a general overview of the newspaper which I hope will be of interest to those curious about the origins and history of the Evening News. The facts assembled here have been derived from various sources which include issues of the newspaper itself, Internet sites and several publications which I have listed at the bottom of this web page.

y The Evening News was founded in 1881 by Coleridge Kennedy and

Harry Marks. The first edition of the newspaper was published on July 26, 1881 and was priced at one halfpenny. It was four pages long with six columns to a page and was edited by Martin Fradd, who had previously edited the Torquay Evening News in Devon. Curiously, the very first issue of the Evening Newsmade no announcement of the fact that it was the first edition, nor was there any proclamation of editorial policy. Unheralded, the paper simply came out. y The original daily circulation of the Evening News totalled a mere 10,000 copies. In the early years of its life the newspaper was distributed in London from traps drawn by ponies. y Martin Fradd, together with several of his associates (also from Devon), set up the original newspaper offices of the Evening News at 83-85 Farringdon Street, Ludgate Circus, London, E.C. The building that housed the offices of the newspaper was in fact situated in an alley just off Farringdon Street.

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Soon after its inception, the Evening News, which had originally entertained somewhat liberal aspirations, became the voice of the Conservative Party when it was bought by the Conservative Newspaper Company Ltd. At this point Martin Fradd was replaced as editor by Frederick A. Hyndman whose own brief tenure came to an end when Charles Williams, a former war correspondent, took over as editor in 1882. In 1882, the Evening News headquarters were relocated to a ramshackle building at 12 Whitefriars Street, London, E.C. The newspaper was to remain at this address for the next twenty years. In 1883 Frank Harris (1856-1931) was appointed as the new editor. Harris held the position for four years during which time he became known for his sensationalising headlines. He left in 1887 to become editor of the Fortnightly Review. His successor was Dr. I. Rubie. On November 22, 1888, the editors of the Evening News announced that the circulation of the newspaper had reached 219,000 copies. In 1889 Rubie left the Evening News and was succeeded by W. R. Lawson who himself was replaced the same year by J. H. Copleston who held the post from 1889-1894. On May 13, 1889, the Evening Post, a rival newspaper, lost out in the circulation battle and was absorbed by the Evening News. From this date onwards the new amalgamated paper carried the full title of "The Evening News and Post," and was now owned by the Union Newspaper Company Ltd. From 1889 onwards the Evening News and Post proudly claimed to have the "largest sale of any evening paper in London."

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By the summer of 1894, the newspaper, which was under the control of city financier Harry Marks, was struggling financially. On August 30, 1894, the nearly-bankrupt Evening News and Postwas acquired for 25,000 by the brothers Alfred Harmsworth (1865-1922) and Harold Harmsworth (18681940), who were to become the first Lord Northcliffe and the first Lord Rothermere respectively. The Harmsworth brothers appointed Kennedy Jones (1865-1921), a brilliant young journalist from Glasgow, as the new editor of the Evening News and Post. The paper was to remain under the ownership of the Harmsworth family empire for its entire lifespan. On September 17, 1894, the "and Post" was dropped from the title and the newspaper reverted back to its original name the Evening News. In the same month the paper announced that its average daily sale had increased to 110,000 copies. The Evening News broke the world record for the highest individual daily sale of a newspaper on November 15, 1894 when 394,447 copies were sold. By March 1896 the daily circulation of the Evening News had increased to over 250,000 copies. In the same year the successful editorship of Kennedy Jones came to an end when he was succeeded as editor by Walter J. Evans. On August 26, 1901, the Evening News absorbed another of its rivals, the Evening Mail. From thereon the full title of the newspaper became "The Evening News and Mail." The Evening News and Mail was the first newspaper to report the death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901. Throughout its history, the Evening News prided itself on being "first with the news." For many years this catchphrase reflected the overriding work ethic associated with being a reporter for the newspaper.

In 1902 the offices of the Evening News were moved from Whitefriars Street to nearby Carmelite House, which was built in 1898, in Carmelite Street, London, E.C.4. The headquarters of theEvening News remained at Carmelite House for several decades. It was said that upon entering Carmelite House, in order to gain ingress to the headquarters of the Evening News one had to ascend several floors of the building in a creaking wrought-iron lift. Many years later, in the years after the Second World War, the Evening News relocated to Northcliffe House, a short distance away on the corner of Whitefriars Street. On March 14, 1905, the newspaper once again changed its name back to the Evening News, dropping the "and Mail" from the title as it appeared on the front cover. This same issue was in fact a special eight-page edition. On the following day (March 15) the newspaper expanded its regular size to six pages. The Evening News was the first evening newspaper to do this. In the same year the Harmsworth family founded Associated Newspapers Limited, of which the Evening News and the Daily Mail (founded in 1896) were a part. The Evening News was a pioneering newspaper, not only in journalistic terms but also in its use of new technology. Journalistic novelties pioneered by the newspaper included the "Woman's World" and "Gossip of the Day" columns. The Evening News was also the first newspaper to install a telephone in its offices (at Carmelite House) and, in 1906, the Evening News initiated the use of motor vans for distribution. With a large fleet in operation, the bright yellow Evening News distribution vans were for a familiar site in London for many years.

y During the years of the First World War (1914-1918), the size of the Evening

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News fluctuated a great deal. Although there were a number of eight or ten page issues produced during the war, most editions of the newspaper were only four pages long. By 1917, acute paper shortages in Britain led to the curtailment of newspaper distribution and smaller sized papers in general. In early 1918 enforced rationing was introduced in Britain, after a government policy of encouraging a code of voluntary rationing had failed to work. This situation ensured that the Evening Newsremained at its minimum size of four pages, and also resulted in the newspaper carrying less advertisements. Shortly after the cease-fire agreement on November 11, 1918 which marked the end of the First World War, the Evening News returned to its former size of eight pages long. Over the next few years the newspaper gradually grew in size. In July 1920 the average net daily sale of the Evening News was 825,825 copies. In 1922, the editor Walter J. Evans, who had held the post for 26 years, was replaced by Charles Beattie (1875-1952), whose tenure ended in 1924 when Frank L. Fitzhugh took over the role.

y In 1927 the headquarters of the Daily Mail newspaper were relocated to the recently constructed Northcliffe House on Tudor Street. From thereon the offices in the original Carmelite House were fully occupied by the staff of the Evening News. This extra space was necessary to accommodate the newspaper's rapid growth in both size and popularity during the mid-1920s. By 1928, the newspaper was sixteen pages long. y On January 25, 1930, the 15,000th edition of the Evening News was published. In the same month it was announced that the average daily sale of the newspaper was 691,320 copies. y In the 1930s the Evening News, under the editorship of Frank L. Fitzhugh, was by far and away the most popular London newspaper. Its circulation was almost as large as those of The Star and the Evening Standard combined. The average daily net sale throughout 1938 was 812, 405 copies. y Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the British government introduced paper rationing. As a result of this issues of the Evening News during the war years were only four pages long. After the war ended in 1945, continuing paper shortages meant that the Evening News stayed the same size for the remainder of the decade. y Fitzhugh's long term as editor ended when he passed away in 1944. At this point Guy Schofield (1902-1990) took over the post.

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Despite paper restrictions, the Evening News announced on October 22, 1946 that the average daily net sale of the newspaper had reached 1,598,181 copies. The newspaper achieved its highest-ever circulation under the editorship of Schofield in the late 1940s, when it regularly sold 1,700,000 copies. In 1950 Schofield was succeeded as editor by John N. Marshall, under whose editorship the biggest-ever individual sale for an issue of the Evening News was reached. This occurred at the time of the death of King George VI in February 1952, when three million copies were sold in a single day. In the early 1950s, when paper rationing finally came to an end, the Evening News gradually began to grow in size. The newspaper first expanded from four to eight pages. By the late 1950s the paper had grown in size to sixteen pages long. From thereon, the Evening News continued to increase in page length. Reginald Willis, who had previously worked as assistant editor on the Evening News, took over as editor in 1955. The Star, a long-running competitor of the Evening News, had its offices in Bouverie Street, just around the corner from the Evening News headquarters. Although The Star was founded in 1888, from 1930 it was a companion newspaper to the News Chronicle, a national daily that was considered the most liberal of all the Fleet Street newspapers. Both papers folded when they were absorbed by Associated Newspapers in 1960. The News Chronicle merged with the Daily Mail and The Star was absorbed by the Evening News. On October 18, 1960, the official title of the newspaper became "The Evening News Incorporated with The Star." In 1965 K. Stamp was appointed as the new editor. His replacement in 1967 was Don R. Boddie. During the 1960s the Evening News steadily increased in size, with the paper regularly producing issues that were between twenty and thirty pages long. On September 16, 1968, the paper reverted back to its former name, being once again known simply as the Evening News. At this point the editors also replaced the distinctive gothic lettering of the newspaper's title as it appeared on the front page, with a more modern typeface. From the 1950s onwards, the three surviving evening newspapers in London were suffering from dwindling circulations, and competition between them was fierce. After The Star folded in 1960, sales of the two remaining newspapers, the Evening News and the Evening Standard, continued to fall. There were a number of reasons for this. The Evening News journalist Felix Barker, writing in 1980, reflected that the constant reader had gradually become an inconstant reader. In the paper's heyday the typical scenario was that the husband would buy an evening newspaper on his way home from work, handing the paper to his wife when he got home. However, with the rising popularity of television in the 1950s, the necessity for an evening newspaper was lessened. People began to turn more and more to television for their news and entertainment. Another explanation for the shrinking evening newspaper market was that from the 1940s onwards the population of inner London did in fact decline dramatically. In the 1970s sales of the Evening News continued to fall. In addition to this, the newspaper was plagued by several industrial disputes. On a number of occasions throughout the 1970s theEvening News was not printed due to strike action by the printers and maintenance worker's unions. The Evening News converted from broadsheet to tabloid size on September 16, 1974. Although this represented a major break with tradition, it was deemed a necessary step in order for theEvening News to continue to compete successfully with the Evening Standard. At this point Don R. Boddie was replaced as editor by Louis Kirby (1928- ), who held the position for the next six years.

Evening News, formerly known as The Evening News, was an evening newspaper published in London from 1881 to 1980, reappearing briefly in 1987. It became highly popular under the control of the Harmsworth brothers. For a long time it maintained the largest daily sale of any evening newspaper in London. After financial struggles and falling sales it was eventually merged with its long-time rival theEvening Standard in 1980.

The paper was founded by Coleridge Kennard and Harry Marks. The first issue appeared on July 26, 1881. It was the first popular evening paper in London. It was priced at one halfpenny, distinguishing itself from the more serious penny papers such as The Times. The first issues were printed on light blue paper and later editions on yellow and green paper. The rivalry between halfpenny papers in the late 19th century was fierce and almost ended the Evening News. According to some sources the paper was losing 40,000 a year. In 1894 the brothers Alfred and Harold Harmsworth bought the paper for 25,000. In 1888 Alfred had founded a paper caller Answers that was modelled after another popular paper called Tit-Bits. Harold gave up his clerk s job to handle the business-side of the papers while Alfred effectively controlled the papers with great success. Later on Alfred became Lord Northcliffe and Harold became Lord Rothermere. The brothers started several papers of which the Daily Mail became the most influential. Under the editor Kennedy Jones the Evening News was one of the papers that transformed the English press with their so called new journalism. This meant that the papers were aimed at a wider general public than the traditional ones, such as The Times. .

20th century
y The Evening News became one of the leading papers in England under the

control of Northcliffe. In 1900 evening newspapers were not considered to be good investments and most of the London newspapers were losing money. At the same time the Evening News was making profit of 50,000 a year. y The circulation numbers of English newspapers between 1850 and 1930s can only be guessed at. (The newspapers would not publish exact figures except in their advertising, which cannot be trusted.) Some authors have carefully estimated that in 1910 the circulation of the Evening News was 300,000. Among the halfpenny evening papers this would amount to a share of 35,7 percent. The estimate for the average circulation of July 1914 is approximately 600,000, which would make it the biggest evening paper in London. 94 short stories by crime fiction writer Will Scott were published between 1952 and 1964.[1] y Northcliffe died in 1922. After that the control of the Associated Newspapers, including the Daily Mail, Evening News, Weekly Dispatch and Overseas Daily Mail, was bought by his brother Harold. After 1936 Harold s son Esmond took over as the chairman of Associated Newspapers.

Demise and reappearance

y Although it had been the biggest evening paper in London over several

decades, at the turn of the 1980s the Evening News was struggling with financial problems and falling sales. In October 1980 Associated Newspapers announced that the newspaper would be closed at the end of the month. The last issue was on October 31, 1980. The paper was merged with its long-time rival the Evening Standard. For some time the resulting paper was called the New Standard. The name Evening News is still featured on the titlepiece of the Evening Standard. y The Evening News reappeared for few months in 1987 when it was launched by the Evening Standard's owners Associated Newspapers in order to counter Robert Maxwell's London Daily News; this sparked a price war, by the end of which the Evening News was being sold at 5p to the London Daily News' 10p. Following the collapse of the London Daily News the Evening News was once again integrated into the Evening Standard.

Editors
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1881: Charles Williams 1883: Frank Harris 1887: I. Rubie 1889: W. R. Lawson 1889: J. H. Copleston 1894: Kennedy Jones 1896: Walter Evans 1922: Charles Beattie 1924: Frank Fitzhugh 1943: Guy Schofield 1950: J. Marshall 1954: Reg Willis 1967: John Gold 1974: Louis Kirby 1987: Lori Miles