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The Later Years of the Berrow's Worcester Journal

  • 16 Jan 2012
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By 1836, Henry Deighton was the sole owner, and the paper was printed and published from 53 High Strret (on the corner of Church Street), where the Deighton family had kept a bookshop, as well as a small printing office doing general work and lithography, uninterrupted for well over a century. From the Deightons it passed into the hands of Mr.Frederick Gosling until the 1870s, when further developments took place.

For many years, Berrow's Worcester Journal was the only Conservative newspaper in the area, and it had always been well supported by the Party. Late in the 1870s, when more and more of the ordinary people were becoming literate, the party promoted the idea of a cheap weekly Tory paper, but eventually, instead of establishing their own newsapaper, it was decided to link with Berrow's officially, which then became a limited company, with George H. Williamson, Major and owner of the Providence Tin Plate Works, as the first chairman, and Mr.Davey as Editor, a position the latter held for 28 years.

The idea of a cheap Tory newspaper eventually came to fruition by way of a1/2d, daily paper called the Worcester Daily Times. The first issue came out on January 5, 1880, and both Berrow's and the new Daily Times were printed in the same office, but moving to Broad Street, in the premises of the old Unicorn Inn, which had recently closed, enabling the considerable storage buildings at the rear to become a fair sized printing establishment.

The papers were produced there until 1937, when in November of that year, the Berrow's company merged with the Worcestershire Advertiser company to produce a new daily paper called the Worcester Evening News and Times. This was later shortened to the Worcester Evening News and was printed in the old Ebenezer Baylis Printing Works in the Trinity. After the Second World War the new Berrow's House Printing Works was opened in Hylton Road.