PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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WESTERN EVENING HERALD and FOOTBALL HERALD Plymouth's first evening newspaper, the Western Evening Herald, was launched by the proprietors of the Western Daily Mercury at 2pm on Saturday April 20th 1895. The owner, Mr Owen, invited Mr R A J Walling to be its first editor and the paper cost a half-penny a copy. It was renamed The Evening Herald and Western Evening News on Monday September 17th 1923 but was again changed on May 24th 1924 to the Western Evening Herald and Western Evening News. It has in recent years become the Evening Herald and now just The Herald, which it was always known as anyway except to those people involved in recording local history. It is also no longer an evening newspaper. On September 9th 1899 the Western Evening Herald spawned a Saturday's only Football Herald during the season. This newspaper ceased publication during both World Wars, re-appearing after the Second War on August 31st 1946. The Football Herald finally came to an end with issue number 2,158 on December 18th 1954, by which time it was noteworthy for being printed on green paper. Unfortunately the newspaper market in Devon was a bit overcrowded by 1920 and all papers ran into financial difficulties. In that year, Sir Leicester Harmsworth acquired the Western Morning News Company and on January 31st 1921 it was joined by the Western Evening Herald and the Western Daily Mercury. The Western Evening Herald went tabloid in 1987. Plymouth Central Library has a complete set on microfilm and the British Library Newspaper Library hold the first, last and many other issues of the Football Herald.
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