ABSTRACT
The two decades following Waterloo witnessed a marked expansion in size and improvement in quality of the provincial newspaper. The economic historian finds little material, except among the advertisements, in the columns of the small four-paged weeklies of the eighteenth century: a strike, a food riot, or an onslaught on machines might merit a place on page three, and a brief list of market prices might be tucked away under the obituary notices: but the greater part of the news was collected, with the aid of a pair of scissors and a pot of paste, from the London journals. After Waterloo economic distress and discontent simply had to be noticed and studied; the number and circulation of papers increased, news-sheets grew larger, and in the growing space devoted to local news, notes about the state of industry, trade, transport, and prices found a place. By the accession of Victoria the leading provincial journals were giving a lot of attention to business annals and analysis, and at least one of them, the Leeds Mercury, was employing a textile expert who made his monthly report on the woollen industry a peg on which to hang long, elaborate, carefully reasoned forecasts. For nine years—1835 to 1844 — he described, dissected, and prophesied; and an “evaluation” of his “service” would reveal a score at least as high as that obtained by any branch of Delphic Oracles (Incorporated) during the last decade.
