On Friday, the Lincolnshire Echo chalks up another landmark when it celebrates its 110th birthday. Peter Brown looks back at how it all started, some of its earliest stories and campaigns, its first picture and at some of the highlights in the history of the evening paper…

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It all began on a cold January day in 1893. Someone pressed a button, putting a powerful gas-driven printing press in motion and Lincolnshire’s first evening paper was born.

And it wasn’t long before the people of Lincoln were queuing up to hand over a half-penny which ensured them of a souvenir copy of the first Lincolnshire Echo.

Right from the start, the Echo brought the major local, national and international news of the day into people’s homes.

The first issue reported crime and murder in Lincoln; there was trouble in the Empire and in Ireland; agriculture was in depression; chapel religion was booming; Queen Victoria told a joke and the ball wasn’t running for Lincoln City.

The team had gone down 4-1 in a match away to Crewe.

In its initial editorial, the first daily newspaper printed and published in the county, promised impartial news columns and features and opinions of its own on issues affecting the higher interests of the people.

The Liberal Party and “the greatest statesman of the age – Gladstone” were backed.

Adverts dominated the front page and if you had wanted to place a 16-word advertisement, it would have set you back all of six pence.

A 40-word advert for six days could be taken for half a crown (12.5p).

The Echo had been launched at 142 High Street, by Lancashire duo William Cottam and Samuel Burrows.

And right from the start it made full use of one of the greatest inventions ever of the age – electricity.

Readers were told: “The wonders of electricity light up the Echo premises including the entrance where the lightshow of 2,000 candle power can be seen nearly six miles away on a dark, clear night.”

It wasn’t long before the Echo launched its first campaign, aimed at prodding the city council into speeding up progress towards a free public library and public baths.

The first picture was published in November 1893 with a portrait of Albert Wingfield Hall who had just been named as the new Mayor of Lincoln.

The Echo’s home was to remain in High Street for no more than four years.

Before the turn of the century it would move the short distance to St Benedict’s Square, where it was to carry on producing newspapers throughout the good times and the bad.

Two world wars came and went.

New factories opened and others closed.

Massive new estates sprang up on the outskirts of the city and major new roads were opened.

As the 20th century began to draw to a close, large parts of the city centre were pedestrianised and Wigford Way was constructed at the back of the Echo office.

It became increasingly difficult for newspaper production to continue at St Benedict’s.

A new home was needed and a site was found in nearby Brayford Wharf East.

The Echo moved into its brand new headquarters in 1984 and the St Benedict’s building – which had been such a landmark for so long – was demolished and replaced with shops.

Back to the Bygones index

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