PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
||
 |
|||
|
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 Saturday 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 with issue volume XXXIV number 1,843 on Saturday August 31st 1946. It cost 1½d. The Football Herald finally came to an end with issue number 2,158 on Saturday December 18th 1954, by which time it was noteworthy for being printed on green paper. From Saturday January 1st 1955 it became the "Football Final" Edition of the main 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 on Saturdays only in 1987 and became simply the "Evening Herald". In October 2006 the name was changed to "The Herald" when its print deadline time was moved forward from around 11am to 1am and it ceased to be an evening paper. It was announced on February 19th 2010 that the printing presses at the newspaper's Derriford office would be closing down and the work transferred elsewhere. It would result in 95 staff losing their jobs. As from Monday March 1st 2010 The Herald will be printed in Weymouth, Dorset. The Western Morning News will continue to be produced in Plymouth until Monday April 12th 2010, after which it will be printed in Didcot, Oxfordshire. [1] Plymouth Central Library has an almost complete set on microfilm and the British Library Newspaper Library hold the first, last and many other issues of the Football Herald. Sources (incomplete):
|
|||
