External links
- Concise History of British Newspaper in the 20th Century Archived 2015-05-18 at the Wayback Machine – www.bl.uk
- History of the Daily News – Spartacus Educational
- History of the Daily Chronicle – Spartacus Educational
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner | Cadbury family |
| Founded | 2 June 1930 |
Ceased publication | 17 October 1960 |
| Language | English |
| City | London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
Sister newspapers | The Star |
The News Chronicle was a British daily newspaper. Formed by the merger of The Daily News and the Daily Chronicle in 1930, it ceased publication on 17 October 1960, being absorbed into the Daily Mail. Its offices were at 12/22, Bouverie Street, off Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 8DP, England.
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, the News Chronicle was formed by the merger of the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle on 2 June 1930, with Walter Layton appointed as editorial director.
The centenary of the Daily News (founded 1846) was marked by a BBC radio documentary called Reporting Progress. This was transmitted on the Home Service on 20th January 1946 and included dramatisations of historic events reported in the Daily News and News Chronicle. The programme exists in its entirety, having been recovered from St Bride Library in Fleet Street in 2015.[citation needed]
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the paper took an anti-Franco stance and sent three correspondents to Spain in 1936-37: Denis Weaver, who was captured and nearly shot before being released; Arthur Koestler (to Málaga); and, later, Geoffrey Cox (to Madrid). The paper's editorial staff took an active part in campaigning for the release of Koestler, who was captured by Franco's forces at the fall of Málaga and was in imminent danger of being executed.
Following Koestler's release, the paper sent him to Mandatory Palestine, then convulsed by the Arab revolt. In a series of articles in the paper, Koestler urged adoption of the Peel Commission's recommendation for partition of Palestine, as "the only practical way of ending the bloodshed". In his autobiography Koestler notes that en route to Palestine he had stopped in Athens and had clandestine meetings with Communists and Liberals opposing the then Metaxas dictatorship, but the News Chronicle refused to publish his resulting strongly worded anti-Metaxas articles.
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".
On 17 October 1960, the News Chronicle "finally folded, inappropriately, into the grip" of the right-wing Daily Mail despite having a circulation of over a million. The News Chronicle's editorial position was considered at the time to be in broad support of the British Liberal Party, in marked contrast to that of the Daily Mail. As part of the same takeover, the London evening paper The Star was incorporated into the Evening News.
Notable contributors to the News Chronicle and its predecessors included:
