Evening Chronicle

History

The Chronicle originated as the Newcastle Chronicle, founded in 1764 as a weekly newspaper by Thomas Stack and Ann Fisher. The paper was left to his daughter Sarah Hodgson in 1785.

The business was sold to a consortium led by Mark William Lambert, a local businessman. The repeal of the taxes on newspapers in 1855, along with the hiring of new journalists and the installation of a new printing press, created an opportunity to expand the newspaper.

On 1 May 1858 the paper was re-launched as the Daily Chronicle and Northern Counties Advertiser. The editor, businessman and social reformer Joseph Cowen, became its sole owner at the end of 1859. He soon turned the Newcastle Daily Chronicle (as it was titled from 1867) into the most successful newspaper in the area and one of the most successful provincial newspapers of the 19th century.

In April 2013, the Evening Chronicle became known as The Chronicle or Chronicle Live.

Present day

The Chronicle was a broadsheet from its inception until 8 October 1997, when it switched to become a tabloid. Prior to 2007 the paper was published twice daily, with an evening edition on sale from the late afternoon.

It concentrates on local news, human interest stories and sport, with a particular emphasis on Newcastle United F.C. A jobs supplement increases the paper's circulation every Thursday. In October 2013, the Chronicle and its sister publications The Journal and Sunday Sun were banned from Newcastle United F.C. due to the papers' coverage of a fans' protest march. The ban was later withdrawn.

The Chronicle's political coverage is focused towards the region and local politics: being a predominantly Labour supporting region, this feeds into the coverage of current affairs. However, the Chronicle has never made an official endorsement unlike contemporary regional papers such as the Evening Standard or the Liverpool Echo.

Sister papers

Owned by Reach plc, the Chronicle is the sister publication of another North East newspaper The Journal. The two papers once complemented each other, with The Journal being published in the morning and the Chronicle in the afternoon, though both titles are now printed overnight and are on newsstands along with national titles.

In 2007, a local free paper The Herald and Post was rebranded under the Chronicle banner, as Chronicle Extra.

The Chronicle focuses on news and sport in the North East and in particular the Newcastle United. North East sport was covered by The Pink (a Chronicle supplement) from 1895 to 2005. The "Pink" paper was usually issued after the days football had concluded on a Saturday. The last edition was published on 17 December 2005.

References

References

1. (27 January 2025). "Newcastle Chronicle". [[Audit Bureau of Circulations (UK)]].
2. Purdue, Bill. (15 October 2011). "Newcastle - The Biography". Amberley Publishing Limited.
3. Bolckow. (2022-02-21). "Anne Fisher (1719-1788) plaque - St. Johns Church, Grainger Street, Newcastle upon Tyne".
4. Isaac, Peter. (2004-09-23). "Hodgson, Solomon (bap. 1760, d. 1800), printer and newspaper proprietor".
5. "Newcastle Daily Chronicle".
6. Milne, Maurice. (1971). "The Newspapers of Northumberland and Durham". Frank Graham.
7. "About Us". Chronicle Live.
8. (30 October 2013). "Newcastle United journalist ban emulates Sir Alex Ferguson arrogance". The Guardian.
9. David Morton. (17 December 2015). "The Chronicle's football Pink - last published on this day 10 years ago". ChronicleLive.