Ann Smith, granddaughter of Nottinghamshire newspaper founder and editor Henry Morley, has compiled a new book of her illustrious forebear’s own writings.
Evening Post journalist Andy Smart and historian Mavis Ellis looked at the life and times of one the first editor of the Hucknall Dispatch.

They could have called him “Scoop” Morley. He had only just signed up as the Hucknall correspondent of the Nottingham Evening Post late in 1900 when he came across a hot story.

“On a Friday morning at 6 o’clock there was an attempted murder by a man on a woman, who survived, but the man committed suicide,” Henry wrote later.

“I got word of it from the milkman (often a good source for news) and was soon on the scene in George Street for particulars, including an interview with a man named Ben Gough who had been attracted to his bedroom window by the cries of the woman.

“Before 9am I had his story complete and telephoned the Evening Post (then telephone number 83).”

The Post produced a special edition and within two hours it was on sale in Hucknall and the city.

The career of a great newspaperman was up and running.

Three years later, Henry Morley founded and became editor of the Hucknall Torkard Dispatch and Leen Valley Mercury, now known as the Hucknall and Bulwell Dispatch.

It was a huge achievement for someone who suffered hardships as a child growing up in Sutton-in-Ashfield.

With his younger brother Charlie, he was sent to the workhouse at the age of seven when his father deserted the family.

Henry began work at 13, an apprentice printer with F. W. Buck, owner of the Notts Free Press in Sutton, signing indentures which included such rules as: