The Lancashire Telegraph is wishing itself a happy birthday today after reaching its 125th anniversary.
It was 26 October 1886 when the first copy of the Blackburn-based title rolled off the presses and sold for a ha’penny.
Then known as the Northern Daily Telegraph, it was the first evening newspaper to be published in East Lancashire.
Its founder was a young newspaper manager who tried to buy an evening paper at several stations, before discovering there wasn’t one anywhere between Bolton and Glasgow.
Stirred into action, Thomas Ritzema purchased two shops at 19 and 21, Railway Road, Blackburn, for the launch of his venture and his first offices.
In the paper’s early days, reporters on assignments used horse-drawn cabs to get around while pigeons were used to send scores and reports for its sports supplement.
The title changed its name to the Evening Telegraph in 1956 and used full colour for the first time in 1963.
And 100 after it was created — on Thursday 30 October 1986 — it produced its first edition in which all the news content was handled electronically by the editorial department.
Now owned by regional publishing giant Newsquest, the LT also claims to be the first regional newspaper in Britain to put daily, updated news on the internet.
Editor Kevin Young, appointed in 2000, is only the 11th person to hold the title since Mr Ritzema.
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Lovely story. Particularly like the reference to reporters using handsome cabs and carrier pigeons in years gone by (I’m assuming things have changed over there in East Lancs…?)
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It’s NQ…how long before they shut the offices, the paper ceases to exist in the town and the status is returned to Before Ritzema?
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I found it amazing the story of the paper’s 125 years totally blanked its finest moments when its circulation was five times the current one.
It beat off the dailies to land the Journalist of the Year Aawrd,twice Crime Reporter of the Year and Campaigning Journalist of the Year.
That feat over a two year period has never been bettered in British reporting history-yet the very paper which achieved it now is in denial of it.
Could it be the current incumbenhts are a little green eyed.
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