News Chronicle

The News Chronicle was a British daily newspaper. It ceased publication on 17 October 1960,^[1] being absorbed into the Daily Mail. Its offices were in Bouverie Street, off Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 8DP, England.^[1]

Daily Chronicle

Main article: Daily Chronicle

The Daily Chronicle was founded in 1872. Purchased by Edward Lloyd for £30,000 in 1876, it achieved a high reputation under the editorship of Henry Massingham and Robert Donald, who took charge in 1904. Owned by the Cadbury family, with Laurence Cadbury as chairman,^[2] the News Chronicle was formed by the merger of the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle on 2 June 1930.^[3] with Walter Layton appointed as editorial director.^[2]

Politics

With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the paper took an anti-Franco stance and sent two correspondents, Arthur Koestler (to Málaga)^[4] and, later, Geoffrey Cox^[4] (to Madrid) in 1936. In 1956, the News Chronicle opposed the UK's military support of Israel in invading the Suez canal zone, a decision which cost it circulation. According to Geoffrey Goodman, a journalist on the newspaper at the time, it was "one of British journalism's prime casualties of the Suez crisis".^[5]

Death

In 17 October 1960, the News Chronicle "finally folded, inappropriately, into the grip"^[5] of the right-wing Daily Mail despite having a circulation of over a million.^[1] The News Chronicle's editorial position was considered at the time to be in broad support of the British Liberal Party, which was in marked contrast to that of the right-wing Daily Mail. As a result the News Chronicle ceased publication and the title was absorbed by the Daily Mail.^[3]

As part of the same takeover, the London evening paper The Star was incorporated into the Evening News.

Notable contributors

Notable contributors to the News Chronicle and its predecessors included:

• Vernon Bartlett – diplomatic correspondent
• James Cameron – war correspondent
• G. K. Chesterton – weekly opinion column in the Daily News
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – war correspondent for the Daily Chronicle during World War I
• Geoffrey Cox – war correspondent for the Spanish Civil War (in Madrid), former editor and chief executive of ITN began his career with the News Chronicle in 1932
• E. S. Dallas – Paris correspondent
• Philip Jordan – war correspondent, World War II
• Thomas Kettle – war correspondent for the Daily News during the early part of World War I
• Arthur Koestler – writer and war correspondent for the Spanish Civil War
• Ritchie Calder - Science Editor, who broke the story of the discovery of DNA structure in 1953.
• H. G. Wells – contributor to the Daily News
• C. W. A. Scott - Aviation editor
• Norman Clark - War Correspondent, Foreign Editor

Editors

1930: Tom Clarke

1933: Aylmer Vallance

1936: Gerald Barry^[4]

1948: Robin Cruikshank

1954: Michael Curtis

1957: Norman Cursley

See also

• Get Ahead: 1960s BBC TV programme sponsored by the paper.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Liberal Democrat News 15 October 2010, accessed 15 October 2010
2. ^ ^{a b} Dennis Griffiths (ed.) The Encyclopedia of the British Press 1492-1992, Macmillan, 1992, p.437
3. ^ ^{a b} Timeline of UK newspapers
4. ^ ^{a b c} Obituary of Sir Geoffrey Cox The Times 4 April 2008
5. ^ ^{a b} Geoffrey Goodman "Suez and Fleet Street", BBC News, 1 November 2006. Accessed: 3 May 2010

External links

• DMGT Associated Newspapers – www.dmgt.co.uk
• Concise History of British Newspaper in the 20th Century – www.bl.uk
• History of the Daily News – www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
• History of the Daily Chronicle – www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk