The history of British newspapers begins in the 17th century with the emergence of regular publications covering news and gossip. The relaxation of government censorship in the late 17th century led to a rise in publications, which in turn led to an increase in regulation throughout the 18th century. The Times began publication in 1785 and became the leading newspaper of the early 19th century, before the lifting of taxes on newspapers and technological innovations led to a boom in newspaper publishing in the late 19th century. Mass education and increasing affluence led to new papers such as the Daily Mail emerging at the end of the 19th century, aimed at lower middle-class readers.
The Stamp Act 1765, also known as the Duties in American Colonies Act 1765, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper from London which included an embossed revenue stamp. Printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies, and it had to be paid in British currency, not in colonial paper money.
Following the Peterloo Massacre on 16 August 1819, the government of the United Kingdom under Lord Liverpool acted to prevent any future disturbances by the introduction of new legislation, the so-called Six Acts aimed at suppressing any meetings for the purpose of radical reform. Élie Halévy considered them a panic-stricken extension of "the counter-revolutionary terror ... under the direct patronage of Lord Sidmouth and his colleagues"; some later historians have treated them as relatively mild gestures towards law and order, only tentatively enforced.
Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of sterling, and the word pound is also used to refer to the British currency generally, often qualified in international contexts as the British pound or the pound sterling.
The Tea Act 1773 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. A related objective was to undercut the price of illegal tea, smuggled into Britain's North American colonies. This was supposed to convince the colonists to purchase Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to accept Parliament's right of taxation. Smuggled tea was a large issue for Britain and the East India Company, since approximately 86% of all the tea in America at the time was smuggled Dutch tea.
A stamp act is any legislation that requires a tax to be paid on the transfer of certain documents. Those who pay the tax receive an official stamp on their documents, making them legal documents. A variety of products have been covered by stamp acts including playing cards, dice, patent medicines, cheques, mortgages, contracts, marriage licenses and newspapers. The items may have to be physically stamped at approved government offices following payment of the duty, although methods involving annual payment of a fixed sum or purchase of adhesive stamps are more practical and common.
The pound is the currency of Gibraltar. It is pegged to – and exchangeable with – British pound sterling at par value. Coins and banknotes of the Gibraltar pound are issued by the Government of Gibraltar.
Until the early 19th century, Grub Street was a street close to London's impoverished Moorfields district that ran from Fore Street east of St Giles-without-Cripplegate north to Chiswell Street. It was pierced along its length with narrow entrances to alleys and courts, many of which retained the names of early signboards. Its bohemian society was set amidst the impoverished neighbourhood's low-rent dosshouses, brothels and coffeehouses.
"On American Taxation" was a speech given by Edmund Burke in the British House of Commons on April 19, 1774, advocating the full repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767. Parliament had previously repealed five of the six duties of this revenue tax on the American colonies, but the tax on tea remained. The speech was given during the debates on the Coercive Acts, when Rose Fuller proposed that the Townshend duty on tea be repealed to decrease resistance to the new acts. Burke's speech was in support of this motion. According to historian Robert Middlekauff, "The speech is memorable for its wit and its brilliant reconstruction of the government's dismal efforts to bring order into colonial affairs without the advantage of a coherent policy."
The Gazette, founded in 1727 as The Maryland Gazette, is one of the oldest newspapers in America. Its modern-day descendant, The Capital, was acquired by The Baltimore Sun Media Group in 2014. Previously, it was owned by the Capital Gazette Communications group, which published The Capital, Bowie Blade-News, Crofton-West County Gazette, and Capital Style Magazine.
The Birmingham Journal was a weekly newspaper published in Birmingham, England, between 1825 and 1869.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Barbados.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of South Australia, a former British colony that is now part of Australia.
Jonas Green was a colonial American printer and newspaper publisher together with his wife Anne Catherine Hoof Green in Maryland. He was a strong opponent of The Stamp Act.
Joseph Alfred Novello was an English music publisher. He was the eldest son of Vincent Novello, and the creator of Novello and Company Ltd as a revolutionary force in music publishing.
The history of journalism in the United Kingdom includes the gathering and transmitting of news, spans the growth of technology and trade, marked by the advent of specialised techniques for gathering and disseminating information on a regular basis. In the analysis of historians, it involves the steady increase of the scope of news available to us and the speed with which it is transmitted.
Taxes on knowledge was a slogan defining an extended British campaign against duties and taxes on newspapers, their advertising content, and the paper they were printed on. The paper tax was early identified as an issue: "A tax upon Paper, is a tax upon Knowledge" is a saying attributed to Alexander Adam (1741–1809), a Scottish headmaster.
The Land Tax was a land value tax levied in England from 1692 to 1963, though such taxes predate the best-known 1692 Act. It was abolished by the Finance Act 1963. Taxes on land date back to the Norman Conquest and beyond, and the Land Tax introduced in 1692 was a natural successor to taxation acts in 1671 and 1689, but the 1692 act "has been regarded as a turning point in the history of English revenue collection. It was from this Act that contemporaries and historians alike date what has come to be known as the eighteenth-century Land Tax". The land tax elements of the 1671, 1689 and 1692 Acts were limited to one year but the 1798 Act made the tax perpetual.
The Illustrated Times Weekly Newspaper was a British newspaper and rival to The Illustrated London News published between 1855 and 1872. The publisher was the Fleet Street bookseller David Bogue and the editor was Henry Vizetelly.
John C. Francis was an English publisher. He was known particularly as an activist and campaigner against the taxes on knowledge.
