ABSTRACT
This is the story of over a century of wrangling between on the one hand politicians and officials, and on the other all forms of the Media. It is sometimes about great principles, more often about deadly detail. The Media have commonly felt under threat from slings and arrows of outrageous government; Governments from those of outrageous reporting. The D-Notice System was not created suddenly, in reaction to some major historical event, nor to meet some new public demand. It evolved slowly, in response to a confluence of trends in the late nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries. These trends included changes in the pattern of rivalry between the major European powers, developments in technologies (particularly those of communications and of warfare), sociological changes within the United Kingdom, the increasing complexity and organisation of British institutions (including the Press), the gradual weakening of Britain’s economic strength relative to that of other countries, and decreasing self-confidence in the country’s predominance as the world’s most powerful nation.
