Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/479

 us. VIL JUNE u, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

471

'STAMFORD MERCURY':

EARLIEST PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER.

(US. vii. 365, 430.)

THEBE is no mystery and no doubt regarding the age of the Stamford Mercury. The facts, however, are not generally known. Eight or nine years ago I went exhaustively into the subject, and the outstanding facts are :

1. There was no Stamford Mercury before the year 1713.

2. A Stamford Mercury was started in 1713.

3. The present Stamford Mercury was started in 1732 by Mr. Francis Howgrave.

The first statement being a negative, I will not attempt to prove it, but the follow- ing will show that it must be correct.

2. The claim that the Stamford Mercury was started in 1695 was never made until 1826. The Stamford Mercury for 30 June, 1826, is numbered " Vol. 95, No. 4971." The next issue (7 July, 1826) is numbered " Vol. 131, No. 6833 " ; and it contains the following :

" It may be useful to some of our readers to state that Vol. 131 and No. 6833, which stand at the head of our paper, denote the number of years and weeks for which the Stamford Mercury has been printed. One of our predecessors in the property, on succeeding to it after the paper had been pub- lished weekly for nearly forty years, thought proper to recommence the numerical distinction, beginning again with No. 1, and from his time the progression nas been regularly observed until the number of the present week would have been 4972, but we have availed ourselves of the occasion of enlarging our paper to add together the two series of numbers, and thus to show the whole period during which the Mercury has been printed, viz., 131 years or 6833 weeks. We possess a file of the paper 110 years old."

This paragraph is based (no doubt in perfectly good faith) upon two erroneous assumptions. The first is that the original Stamford Mercury was started in 1695. It must be an assumption, because no copy of the paper bearing any date in the seven- teenth century is in existence ; and no claim is made, or ever has been made, that such a copy has been seen by any one. The state- ment of the editor of 1826, " We possess a file of the paper 110 years old," tells as plainly as possible the source of the error. "The file" which the editor of 1826 had in his possession was vol. 34, being for the last 26 issues of the year 1729, printed by Will. Thompson and Thomas Bailey. There were known to be earlier volumes in the British Museum, and therefore " we possess "

a file "110 years old" will conceivably pass muster as an accurate statement. But the " file " the editor personally ex- amined was the volume I have mentioned, vol. 34, July-December, 1729. Having only this volume to examine, the editor of

1826 did not know, and did not suspect, that the volumes were half-yearly volumes. He thought that if 1729 represented vol. 34 (and, as he supposed, the 34th year of pub- lication), vol. 1 must have been dated 1695. In the British Museum vols. 31 and 32 repose side by side, and they form but one year, 1728. If the numbering in those days Was correct (and it was), it shows that the Stamford Mercury was started in Janu- ary, 1712/13 (the date was 3 Jan., 1713), that is, 1713 according to present com- putation.

3. Thomas Bailey, mentioned above as one of the proprietors of the Stamford Mercury, left it, by death or otherwise, and the above-named Will. Thompson became sole proprietor. Thompson died in the first half of 1732, leaving his widow in posses- sion. Negotiations were opened up with the owners of the old rival, the North- ampton Mercury ; and the Stamford Mercury on 1 June, 1732, announced, under date " Stamford Printing-Office, May 25, 1732," that the Stamford Mercury from the " First of June " (that very issue) would be " carried on and printed in the Name and for the Use of Cluer Dicey and Compa.," who had pur- chased the materials for printing, &c., from Mrs. Mary Thompson, the widow of the proprietor. Cluer Dicey was one of the proprietors of the Northampton Mercury, which paper had already printed the same announcement on 29 May.

No copy exists of the Stamford Mercury at this period. Mrs. Thompson evidently changed her mind, for in the Northampton Mercury of 12 and 19 June there is an advertisement from the " Stamford Print- ing-Office," dated 9 June, denying that the Stamford Mercury would be printed by

Cluer Dicey and Compa.," and stating that it Would " as heretofore, be carried on and

ublish'd in the Name and for the sole Benefit

f me, Mary Thompson." An advertisement n the Northampton Mercury of 26 June gives public notice that

'the Widow Mary Thompson has provided a

'resh Sett of Servants, in order to serve the Country, as usual, with her Mercury, which will be published on Thursday, the 29th Instant."

Whether the Stamford Mercury was pub- lished on the three Thursdays 8, 15, and 22 June it is impossible to say.