ABSTRACT
In 1500, William Caxton’s apprentice Wynkyn de Worde (and what a great name for a printer) set up premises in Fleet Street. With the concentration of lawyers in the area, Wynkyn had recognised the business possibilities and other printers soon followed (Griffiths 2006: 1). Fleet Street’s location in the centre of London, its closeness to the heart of ecclesiastical, political, business and legal centres and the large number of coffee houses and inns where news and industry gossip could be exchanged – and of course the presence of so many printers – made it the ideal place for journalists. The first regular daily, the Daily Courant, was published in Fleet Street in 1702. By the middle of the twentieth century most national newspapers were published from there: by 1989, none was.
