The Herald at 240: From America's founding still going strong

On January 27, in Glasgow, John Mennons was putting the finishing touches to the first edition of a newspaper he had decided to launch in the city. He received from the Lord Provost a communication from Foreign Secretary Lord Grantham, which declared: “I have the satisfaction to acquaint your Lordship that a messenger is just arrived from Paris with the preliminary articles between Great Britain and France and between Great Britain and Spain were signed at Versailles… the preliminaries with Holland are not yet signed, but a Cessation of Hostilities are agreed upon”.

Read More: The Herald at 240 - A message from our editor Catherine Salmond

The news made the middle third of four columns on the back page. Elsewhere the paper covered the founding of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, an impending riot in Edinburgh over the price of meal, a boat stuck on a rock near Greenock and a new canal in Bo’ness. 240 years later, both the United States of America and The Herald are still going strong.

Early years

The Herald has been going for 240 years (Image: Newsquest)

Mennons had founded the Herald – initially titled the Glasgow Advertiser - for a sum of around £200. While that would equate to just over £24,000 today it was not an expensive operation, with the first issue produced on a Caxton hand press with second or third-hand typesetters.

He would sell the newspaper for £900 in 1802, when the Herald name made its first appearance on the front page (while continuing with the serial numbers of the Advertiser). Editorship passed to a man named Samuel Hunter, who would helm the title for the next 34 years.

An irritable and conservative man, he was unsparing in his criticism of his own staff. In one edition he replaced the parliamentary correspondence with the words “we have not inserted the Parliamentary paragraph of our correspondent’s letter. There was nothing of interest in it.”

Hunter’s opposition to the 1832 Reform Act – which extended the franchise to around 65,000 people - saw an effigy of him burned at Glasgow Cross, while he did not take sides in the raging debate over slavery other than to say it should eventually be abolished.

Following his departure poet George Outram took on the role before the first professional journalist, James Pagan, was appointed following the former’s death in 1856. He made the Herald a daily newspaper, and oversaw its move to a new office on Buchanan Street. Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and bought at a cost which would today by equivalent to £2m, the building would house the newspaper for the next 112 years and is today known as The Lighthouse.

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James Hastie Stoddart saw The Herald into its centenary year – albeit the celebration took place a year early on January 27, 1882 due to a misunderstanding – and Sir Robert Bruce became the defining editor of the new century. Appointed in 1917 he would guide coverage on the First World War, the rise of the Labour Party, red Clydeside, the General Strike and the Great Depression.

Despite being a Conservative politically he acquired a reputation for fair and balanced coverage – though Bruce did have his blindspots, particularly when it came to foreign affairs. During the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, custom was to print personal names in capital letters. Thus, thanks to Bruce’s fountain pen, Addis Ababa became a person in one memorable leader.

World at War

Winston Churchill visits Glasgow (Image: Newsquest)

When Adolf Hitler was elevated to Chancellor of Germany on January 31 1933, the Herald warned “it can only be a matter of time” before the constitution is remodelled “regularly or irregularly”, though conceded “as a politician he must be admitted to have few equals”.

The paper was one of the few critical of the later appeasement policy which saw Britain, France, Germany and Italy agree to cede part of the modern day Czech Republic to the Nazis. A leader column stated: “the Munich agreement… is, in fact, a dictate just as the treaty of Versailles was a dictate – an agreement forced upon a State which has had no real opportunity of discussing its terms. Such an arrangement may be necessary to European peace, but as a diplomatic precedent it may raise certain feelings of uneasiness in the future.” A diplomatic correspondent presciently warned “The Munich Agreement gives Herr Hitler everything he wants… there is nothing to stop him making himself master of all Czechoslovakia in course of time”.

Britain’s entry to the war was greeted with “a certain sense of relief – relief that the long tension of waiting is over and that Britain has chosen in the way of honour and future security… we face this war in the grimly determined spirit of a people already inured to sacrifice and suffering”.

Style change

The front page of The Herald after JFK was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald (Image: Newsquest)

For decades newspaper tradition was to put adverts on the front page, as well as births, deaths and notices. By the 1950s though The Herald and the Times of London were the only national titles continuing with the practice.

James Holburn had been made editor in 1955 and three years later took the controversial step of putting news on the front page of the paper. On October 6 1958, readers were greeted not with advertorials but ‘More terror in Cyprus’, ‘Chinese suspend bombardment’, ‘Boy shot dead on racecourse’ and ‘explosions in Tennessee’, referring to the race riots in the southern US state.

Reaction was mixed. Scottish Secretary of State, John Maclay, said the new development had been inevitable, writing: “I would expect that within a very short time many of those who are a little sad about the changes will find it difficult to recall what the paper looked like before they were made”.

However, a group of sixth year pupils at Paisley’s John Neilson warned it was “the first step in a descent to the standards of the present day yellow press” while an M Limond of 45 Carrick Road in Ayr described himself as “indignant” and fumed “lots of people don’t want to see ‘news’.”

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Ferguson, 17 Lawrence Street, Glasgow simply wrote: “Thank you. For the first time in years my husband did not get marmalade and/or egg all over the paper.”

Cold War

The Herald's front page after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space - the Americans would make it to the moon in 1969 (Image: Newsquest)

There was certainly plenty to include on the front page in the following decades, objections from Ayr or not. The USSR’s development of nuclear weapons, first tested in 1949, led to close to 50 years of cold war between the capitalist West and the communist East.

The Soviet Union had an early advantage in the space race, with its Sputnik satellite – described by the Herald as a ‘lusty 180-pounder’ – the first to make it into orbit, Laika the dog the first animal to exit earth’s atmosphere – the paper kept it local by noting when she’d be passing over Glasgow - and Yuri Gagarin the first human in space. Rumours of that achievement were first reported in the April 11 edition, alongside the first day of Adolf Eichmann’s trial, though it was believed then a Gennady Mikhailov had made the flight. By the 13th the full picture was clear and the front page declared ‘Russians aiming at the moon’.

It was, of course, the Americans who got to the moon first. If the lunar landing was a nerve-wracking experience for the NASA scientists, the same was true for the Herald team. With the editors gathered around a tiny television set printing time had arrived but, Alastair Phillips recalled, “Neil Armstrong was being unconscionably slow about coming down the ladder”. Eventually the decision was made to “let her run” and the edition for Monday July 21, 1969, carried the news of mankind’s giant leap.

On the move

The Herald & Times office at 195 Albion Street

By July of 1980 the Mackintosh building was showing its age, at least when it came to newspaper production. The paper was still produced on hot metal presses in the machine room below the building, with linotype operators setting columns on machines held together with string and Sellotape, spare parts being almost impossible to come by.

The pedestrianisation of Buchanan Street and Gordon Street presented further problems in getting the Herald out to the shops, and a decision was made to move to the old Daily Express building on Albion Street.

The final edition on the old hot press was produced on Friday July 19, with the following Monday’s paper printed using electronic methods. From there the Herald covered momentous events such as the Piper Alpha disaster, which included the first colour photo on the front page, the Lockerbie bombing and the Dunblane massacre.

The first colour front page of The Herald (Image: Newsquest)

The late 80s and early 90s saw the end of the Cold War, the destruction of the Berlin Wall greeted with the headline ‘Old order bulldozed into Berlin history’, with anti-regime movements in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and more soon following. Columnist Ken Smith was despatched to the offices of the Communist Party in Maryhill where he found a “heady dose of realism”, and activists preaching a programme of “proportional representation and parliaments for Scotland, England and Wales”.

There had, of course, already been a vote on the establishment of a Scottish Parliament in 1979, with the Herald endorsing a ‘Yes’ vote, but presciently warned that the 40% turnout needed for that side to win the day may not be achieved. While 51.62% voted in favour, only 32.9% of the electorate backed the proposals. “The assembly is dead, killed by the Scots themselves who wrote it off yesterday as irrelevant to their needs,” said the front page story under the headline ‘Scots Assembly RIP’.

The front page of The Herald after the first referendum on a devolved parliament failed to meet the threshold (Image: Newsquest)

The question was posed again in 1997, with the Herald again in favour, declaring “for too long we have had the excuse of blaming all Scotland's ills on others”. This time the Yes side won with almost two-thirds of the vote, leading to the establishment of the Scottish Parliament two years later.

While the country was changing the newspaper was similarly modernising and was on the move again in 2000. In July of that year, two decades after it had moved in, the Herald left Albion Street for a new office on Renfield Street.

A sparkling glass building, the first edition produced at the new premises noted it would have been “as unfamiliar as the dark side of the moon to the eighteenth-century compositors who produced the first Herald”.

From there its reporters would cover events such as 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Britain’s decision to leave the European Union – as well as the referendum on Scottish independence.

In 2014 the paper backed remaining in the United Kingdom, providing there was more far-reaching devolution. The Herald View stated on the day of the vote: “fudge this process, stitch it up and fail to deliver far-reaching further devolution, and make no mistake: you will be guaranteeing another referendum - one that you will lose, and deserve to lose”.

Modern day

On its 240th anniversary the Herald continues to break new ground. In September 2022 Catherine Salmond was appointed as its first female editor, having previously been editor at Scotland on Sunday and held senior posts at The Scotsman.

Where once it was the advance of electronic printing presses which necessitated adapting to the times, today the rise of the internet has changed the media landscape. While continuing to focus on the print output which has held up for over two centuries, the Herald is now a digitally-focused operation, investing in the latest resources and best people to thrive in the multimedia age.

Now operating out of a beautifully restored listed building on Bath Street, it continues to provide the best in coverage of Scottish and international issues.

As we celebrate our 240th year the Herald is more determined than ever to produce the content readers want and deserve for 2023 and beyond. Here’s to the next 240.

For more than two centuries The Herald has been delivering quality news and insightful commentary. To celebrate our 240th anniversary, we’ve launched our lowest ever subscription offer – one year for just £24. https://t.co/v7nDp2BrP7

— The Herald (@heraldscotland) January 26, 2023