The Oldham Evening Chronicle is celebrating an important milestone this year. It was first published – as a weekly paper – on May 6, 1854, making 2004 the paper’s 150th anniversary. Since then it has had only eight editors and is one of the few remaining family-owned daily newspapers in the country. Here we take a look at how it all began…

In 1854, Oldham was a thriving cotton town, growing bigger by the year on the back of the textile industry. But it had no newspaper of its own. Oldham people had to rely on Manchester papers for news about the town and surrounding districts.

It was a vacuum that had to be filled, and it was the Oldham Chronicle which filled it. On May 6, 1854, the first edition of the Oldham Chronicle was published by Daniel Evans, a bookseller and printer.

He soon found that running a newspaper was hard going, and sold the Chronicle to Robert Lewis Gerrie. Wthin two years Gerrie had died, and the newspaper was sold for £800 to its editor, Jonathan Hirst, and its manager, Wallace Rennie.

The £800 investment in 1857 was the foundation of the present company, Hirst, Kidd and Rennie Ltd, and the following years saw the Chronicle go from strength to strength. The Chronicle was soon established as the town’s leading weekly newspaper, and in 1877 began publication twice a week.

Three years later, in 1880, the Oldham Evening Chronicle was born, and weekly and evening newspapers were published side by side for the next 100 years.

In 1982, the weekly edition of the Chronicle was transformed into Chronicle Weekend, a free weekly newspaper. The Evening Chronicle is now published five nights a week.

The company itself remained Hirst and Rennie Ltd until 1920 when the amalgamation with another printer brought Clarence Kidd into the business, and the company became Hirst, Kidd and Rennie Ltd.

The Chronicle moved to its present home at 172 Union Street, Oldham, in 1923. The building was extensively rebuilt between 1970 and 1973, and in 1990 a new press hall was added to house a Crabtree Crusader colour printing press, which was commissioned in 1991.

The newspaper has had only eight editors since 1854, and only six managing directors to guide it through good times and bad. Though many members of the Rennie family remain as shareholders, the Kidd family line has ended, and only Hirsts play an active part in the business.

Mr Hubert Hirst is executive chairman; Philip Hirst is managing director; Mr Christopher Hirst is printing manager, and Mr Harry Hirst is the vice-chairman.

Other directors are Mr Bernard Stone, finance director; Mr Jim Williams, editor; Mr Jim Taylor, production and technical director.

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