ABSTRACT
The end of the eighteenth century was a period of cataclysmic change. One event in particular had a profound impact on society: the French Revolution. In a world turned upside down by the outpouring of new ideas, the French Revolution swept away the cosy world of ‘politics for the few’ which had shaped the development of the press in Britain and throughout Europe. Radical politics began to emerge from the 1750s onwards. The Wilkes affair represented the beginning of a shift in the political order in which the bourgeoisie united with working people and agitated for change in a political system dominated by the landed gentry and upper classes. Press freedom was a central issue in this struggle, and the first edition of the North Briton in 1762 referred to the ‘good old days’ of the Civil War.2 The French Revolution broke the link between the bourgeoisie and the working classes and brought about class conflict across Europe. Fear of working people, the masses of the nations of Europe, led the upper and emerging middle classes into allegiance in the face of the threat posed to the political and economic order. Calls for greater representation for working people were resisted as the ruling classes attempted to prevent a political revolution taking place in Britain. The response of those in positions of political and economic power was twofold: the suppression of all forms of agitation for change and the substitution of radical ideas by values that upheld the status quo, most clearly promoted through the development of a State-run education system. Knowledge was central to the class struggle: the masthead of one of the leading radical newspapers of the period, the Poor Man’s Guardian, trumpeted the slogan ‘Knowledge is Power’. Traditional histories of the press represent the first half of the nineteenth
century as the era in which newspapers attained their freedom from the State
and political control. The repeal of the ‘taxes on knowledge’, ending direct government intervention in the running of the press, occurred between 1836 and the 1850s. The midwife of this victory is seen as the ability of newspapers to attain economic independence. Advertising ‘provided the material base for the change of attitude from subservience to independence’.3 By the mid-nineteenth century the foundations had been laid down for the press to act as the ‘fourth estate’, challenging and holding to account government and those in positions of authority. Newspapers, free from their political shackles, could now provide the platform on which citizenship and democracy could be built. They would give the people the information they needed to make informed judgements. Radical newspapers are seen as marginal or secondary to the efforts of newspapers such as The Times in the struggle for press freedom. Their role is acknowledged but it is often portrayed as ‘colourful and strident’ and not as ‘wholesome’ as that of the more respectable newspapers.4 For some commentators, advertising did not help to liberate the press but operated as a new method of control, acting as a patronage system which influenced the editorial strategies of newspapers.5 Newspapers took up the cause of their class, serving as ‘mouthpieces’ for competing values and viewpoints. Their presentation and content reflected the interests they served. Radical newspapers, catering for the political, industrial and cultural needs of working people, were unable to attract the advertising revenue which was necessary for them to survive in a market system. ‘Market forces’ rather than ‘legal suppression’, it is argued, were able to conscript the press to support the established social order. The form and style of the newspaper underwent a considerable transfor-
mation during this period. The widening demand for reading material was accompanied by a profound revolution in print technology. The introduction of mechanised paper-making in 1803, steam-powered presses in 1814 and multiple-cylinder stereotype printing in 1827 facilitated the low-cost and high-speed dissemination of the printed word.6 Cheap literature flooded the market, and newspapers, according to one contemporary observer, progressed from the ‘old region of enormous expenditure and fiscal restraint to an age when journalism may be said to be universal as air or light’.7 The composition of newspapers was enhanced by the advent of new typefaces, better print type and the ability to reproduce drawn visual images, which extended their appeal. At a time when the reproduction of knowledge was a site of political struggle newspapers became more accessible and plentiful throughout the country.
