A weekly newspaper is taking a look back at its first 100 years today as it celebrates its centenary.

The Doncaster Free Press was founded on 18th June 1925 as the grandly titled ‘Doncaster Free Press and Courier of Coming Events.’

Originally founded by a local printer named Richard Crowther, the paper was based at Sunny Bar in the town until 2014.

Now part of the National World group, it had only five editors in its first 84 years of existence – Crowther himself, Maurice Coupe, Leonard Peet, Richard Tear and Martin Edmunds, who stepped down in 2009.

Digital journalist Darren Burke looked back at the paper’s history in a retrospective piece being published in the paper and its companion website www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk today.

We are reproducing it in full below.

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Exactly 100 years ago in June 1925, local printer Richard “Dickie” Crowther published the very first copy of a newspaper which he grandly dubbed the Doncaster Free Press and Courier of Coming Events.

It was June 18 of that year that your Doncaster Free Press first made its debut.

On that momentous day just seven years after the end of the First World War, Dickie could scarcely have believed that a century later, the publication would still be going strong today.

2025 marks the centenary of the Doncaster Free Press – and though much has changed in the intervening years, the message that Dickie told readers in the very first issue still rings true.

Introducing the paper for the first time, he wrote: “We beg to be excused for referring briefly to ourselves.

“The changes taking place in our town are of such a sweeping nature that we believe the time is ripe for a publication such as we now put before you.”

Rather prophetically, he also foretold readers’ hungerness for news, now commonplace in the digital age, writing: “Who cares to wait until the weekend for news which can be obtained hot upon its occurence?”

And since we first hit the streets with a guaranteed circulation of 12,000 and a price of 1/2d (yes, its always had a cover price – the “free” refers to editorially and independently free and free speech) – we’ve continued documenting all of those changes he talked about and the major events that have helped to shape Doncaster over the decades.

Things have certainly changed over the years.

Nowadays, our www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk website is where we publish the majority of our stories, videos and photographs – and X, formerly Twitter, as well as Facebook are both ways we’ve embraced new media to present what matters to you in Doncaster in a brand new publishing format.

But our printed product remains just as important now as it ever was and each and every week, our dedicated team of reporters bring you the news from across Doncaster and beyond – because we know that you, our readers always come first.

The paper was the brainchild of a printer who moved his five year old business from Market Road to Sunny Bar in 1924.

Dickie Crowther, or Richard to give him his full name, had already been publishing a weekly entertainment guide at Sunny Bar and decided to make the break into full time publishing with the Doncaster Free Press.

The weekly newspaper was free from the outset of any political allegiance and was sold to local households by a team of part-time workers who collected an old halfpenny for every copy.

Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t free!

The first edition was just four pages and contained only a handful of news snippets – the front page being devoted to adverts for Morris’s wallpaper specialists, ladies and childrenswear outfitters Fieldens and furniture firm Jackson’s Stores.

Inside, columns mused over “ramshackle objects on wheels that are masquerading as motor omnibuses and crawling about the Doncaster district” and “Doncaster getting an awful place” following what was described as “the Arbitration Street shooting” although few further details were provided, other than to add that the police and courts were struggling to cope with the town’s increase in crime.

There was also a competition for readers – offering a 10s reward for deliberate mistakes found in adverts.

The Free Press proved an instant hit and needing more space for printing, additional premises were acquired in Hall Gate and later Chequer Road while the editorial and advertising offices remained at Sunny Bar.

Dickie died in 1955 at the age of 67, with William Brackenbury, his nephew, taking up the reins and installing Leonard Peet as editor, who remained in the seat until 1963 when Maurice Coupe took over and held the post for the next 23 years.

By June 1967, the Free Press was selling more than 40,000 copies a week and new printing premises were again found in Greyfriars Road – it was also the year that readers could purchase the newspaper from newsagents for the first time.

By 1971, the cumbersome broadsheet format had been abandoned and US firm Regis International took over in 1978.

Reed International acquired the business in 1982 and the paper then went into the hands of Johnston Press.

After that firm collapsed, a newly created business under the name of JPIMedia was launched, followed by a brief stint under the guise of National World through to a recent takeover by Irish newspaper firm Media Concierge.

In 1987, Richard Tear followed Maurice Coupe in the editor’s chair and since then there have only been a handful of other editors: Martin Edmunds, Merrill Diplock, Graeme Huston, Chris Burton, Phil Bramley, Nancy Fielder and current content editor Richard Fidler.

The Free Press is part of the Yorkshire Weeklies Group of titles around the county, managed by editorial chief Dominic Brown.

The Free Press was based in Sunny Bar for 89 years, right up until our move into new premises on the corner of Printing Office Street and Cleveland Street in 2014.

The stay in the then town centre was only a short one however and reporters now work from home.

While we may have moved not just offices but in the way we bring you the news, our pledge remains to keep you abreast of current affairs in this great city of ours – hopefully for many more years to come.

We’d like to thank all our readers for your support of the paper over the years, and we hope that continues in the future.