The Times
John Walter opened a printing house on the 1st of January 1785 to produce books using the logography patent he had purchased. The first issue of his new publication appeared under the title The Daily Universal Register that same day. Walter had lost his job at an insurance company in late 1784 after it went bankrupt following losses from a Jamaican hurricane. He needed a new business venture and found one by buying into Henry Johnson's invention. The paper ran for 940 editions before Walter changed its name to The Times on the 1st of January 1788. In 1803, John Walter passed ownership and editorship to his son who shared his father's name. The elder Walter spent sixteen months incarcerated in Newgate Prison for libels printed within the newspaper. His efforts to secure Continental news from France helped build the paper's reputation among policy makers and financiers.
Friedrich Koenig developed a steam-driven cylinder press that began printing The Times in 1814. The circulation reached 5,000 copies by 1815 and grew to 9,800 by 1837. By 1854, the daily run hit 51,200 copies thanks to distribution via steam trains reaching urban populations. Thomas Barnes served as general editor starting in 1817 while James Lawson died and passed the business to his son John Joseph Lawson. Peter Fraser and Edward Sterling gained fame as journalists under Barnes and later editor John Thadeus Delane. They earned the nickname 'The Thunderer' after writing an article about social and political reform. William Howard Russell became the paper's correspondent with the army during the Crimean War. His dispatches back to England were immensely influential and established The Times as one of the first newspapers to send war correspondents to cover specific conflicts.
Wickham Steed published editorials on 29 and the 31st of July 1914 arguing that the British Empire should enter World War I. On the 8th of May 1920, Steed endorsed the anti-Semitic fabrication known as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as a genuine document. Philip Graves exposed the forgery the following year and The Times retracted its editorial from the previous year. Geoffrey Dawson served as editor from 1912 to 1919 and was closely allied with government supporters of appeasement like Neville Chamberlain. Norman Ebbut wrote candid news reports from Berlin warning of Nazi warmongering but editors in London rewrote them to support the policy. Kim Philby worked as a correspondent for the newspaper in Spain during the Spanish Civil War before defecting to the Soviet Union in 1963. E. H. Carr served as assistant editor between 1941 and 1946 and wrote strongly pro-Soviet editorials. In December 1944, Carr sided with Greek Communists during fighting in Athens which led Winston Churchill to condemn him and the article.
Rupert Murdoch's News International bought The Times and The Sunday Times from Thomson Corporation on the 1st of January 1981. The acquisition followed three weeks of intensive bargaining with unions by company negotiators John Collier and Bill O'Neill. William Rees-Mogg resigned after fourteen years as editor upon completion of the change of ownership. Harold Evans replaced Rees-Mogg and introduced new technology including computer input and photocomposition. Between March 1981 and May 1982, the hot-metal Linotype printing process was phased out and replaced by digital methods. Print room staff were reduced by half following these changes. The paper moved from New Printing House Square in Gray's Inn Road to new offices in Wapping during the dispute of 1986. Robert Fisk resigned as foreign correspondent in 1988 over what he saw as political censorship regarding Iran Air Flight 655. The newspaper switched from broadsheet to compact size in 2004 to appeal more to younger readers and commuters using public transport.
News UK required readers who did not subscribe to the print edition to pay £2 per week starting in July 2010. Visits to the websites decreased by 87% after the paywall was introduced in October 2010. Unique users dropped from 21 million per month to 2.7 million one month later. By September 2024, there were 600,000 digital-only paid subscribers for both papers combined. The times.com site had a readership of 103 million in November 2024. An American edition has been published since the 6th of June 2006. A complete historical file of the digitised paper up to 2019 is available online from Gale Cengage Learning. The average daily circulation stood at 365,880 in March 2020 while The Sunday Times reached 647,622 weekly. Times Radio launched in 2020 with an average weekly reach of 604,000 listeners at the end of that year.
Stanley Morison wrote an article criticising The Times for being badly printed and typographically antiquated in 1931. Victor Lardent created the typeface Times New Roman under Morison's supervision using Plantin as a basis for his design. The new font made its debut in the issue of the 3rd of October 1932 after one year it was released for commercial sale. The newspaper stayed with Times New Roman for 40 years before switching typeface five times since 1972 due to new production techniques. Times Europa designed by Walter Tracy appeared in 1972 as a sturdier alternative for faster printing presses. Times Modern unveiled on the 20th of November 2006 used 45-degree angled bracket serifs to improve legibility in smaller font sizes. Ben Preston led Research Studios in creating the typeface alongside designer Neville Brody. The paper has been considered a newspaper of record in the UK since its founding. It inspired numerous other papers around the world bearing similar names despite having national scope and distribution.
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Common questions
When did John Walter open the printing house for The Times?
John Walter opened a printing house on the 1st of January 1785 to produce books using the logography patent he had purchased. The first issue of his new publication appeared under the title The Daily Universal Register that same day.
Who developed the steam-driven cylinder press used by The Times in 1814?
Friedrich Koenig developed a steam-driven cylinder press that began printing The Times in 1814. The circulation reached 5,000 copies by 1815 and grew to 9,800 by 1837.
What editorial stance did Wickham Steed take regarding World War I in July 1914?
Wickham Steed published editorials on 29 and the 31st of July 1914 arguing that the British Empire should enter World War I. On the 8th of May 1920, Steed endorsed the anti-Semitic fabrication known as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as a genuine document.
When did Rupert Murdoch's News International acquire The Times from Thomson Corporation?
Rupert Murdoch's News International bought The Times and The Sunday Times from Thomson Corporation on the 1st of January 1981. The acquisition followed three weeks of intensive bargaining with unions by company negotiators John Collier and Bill O'Neill.
Who created the typeface Times New Roman for The Times newspaper?
Victor Lardent created the typeface Times New Roman under Stanley Morison's supervision using Plantin as a basis for his design. The new font made its debut in the issue of the 3rd of October 1932 after one year it was released for commercial sale.