Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinions in Late Eighteenth-Century England

Published in the reputable Oxford Historical Monographs series, Hannah Barker’s study fills a void in our understanding of several important areas of the financing, content, and readership of newspapers in eighteenth-century England. In particular, she examines the complex dual role of the newspaper as both the vehicle for communicating public opinion and as an opinion-maker in the context of the debates surrounding political reform in the last quarter of the century. Other related questions, such as the composition of the ‘public’ and the role of the people in political debate (at least, those who took an interest in public affairs), are also discussed in this context. As such, the book provides a handy supplement to previous studies which focused on the earlier decades of the century, such as Cranfield’s The Development of the Provincial Newspaper, 1700-1760 (1962), Michael Harris’ London Newspapers in the Age of Walpole (1987), and Bob Harris’ A Patriot Press: National Politics and the London Press in the 1740s (1993).

The central claim of the author is that by “stressing the commercial concerns of newspaper editors and proprietors, and by exploring the links between newspapers and their readers” her book “has challenged the existing historiography of the press, and emphasized the role of public opinion in determining newspaper contents” (179). Barker has succeeded in making good on this claim in a number of ways. She provides a detailed and fresh account of the extent to which newspapers were dependent on advertising and sales for the finance necessary to continue publishing, rather than government ministers, political groups, or the deep pockets of the owners. Few newspapers stridently at odds with the political opinions of their readers could hope to retain their loyalty. This was particularly true of provincial papers, and Barker’s examination of the circulation figures for these papers and of the dynamics of the relationship between provincial newspapers and their local readers in the second half of the book impresses most. Though the reading public was smaller in the provinces and the sections of society from which readers were drawn was not as diverse as in London, she finds the circulation of provincial papers to be far greater than usually estimated.

One of the more interesting features of Barker’s analysis is the way that the newspapers not only reflected popular sentiments, but “also acted in some way to construct the identity of the public themselves” (178). In general she establishes that provincial papers were not amateurish operations, but were rather a good deal more professional and entrepreneurial in carving out a readership necessary for their survival than has often been supposed. Even in the selection of material they reproduced from the London press—usually national news—the editors of provincial papers demonstrated their astuteness in fathoming the interests of their clientele, “frequently producing a political coherence that a more random sample would not have ensured” (127). Moreover, an examination of the contents of local papers in the early 1780s reveals some interesting political geography. While the newspapers in York, Cambridge, Lewes, Canterbury, and Bath provide evidence that reform was given popular backing in these regions, places like Oxford, Northampton, Leicester, and Birmingham showed far less interest. By contrast, in towns with a single newspaper, such as Gloucester and Hereford, the editors attempted a precarious balance in representing both sides of the debate in order to retain as large a readership as possible.

The proliferation of newspapers in London and the provinces during the century’s latter decades provides impetus to the suggestion that profitability was a primary concern for their proprietors. However, to the concomitant extent that newspapers were not reliant on political subsidies, the politics they espoused are partly explained by the predisposition of their editors, and “the manner in which newspapers presented politics was an important editorial strategy” (72). One of Barker’s most significant findings in this regard is the degree to which opposition to reform in the London press runs contrary to the general view that popular politics in the capital was dominated by reformers. Based on an examination of circulation and readership, she has established that “a significant proportion of London opinion was hostile to reform” (93). Papers like the Public Advertiser and the General Evening Post, which included material from both sides of the reform debate, are also suggestive of the depth of the political divisions within the capital reading public. These aspects of Barker’s study challenge the conventional opinion on these matters voiced by other historians.

One might have wished that the author had taken up the issue of the liberty of the press in a more concerted fashion than she has done. For observers like Jeremy Bentham, for example, a free press was one of the principal mechanisms by which public officials could be held accountable, part of the “Public Opinion Tribunal” before which politicians could be called to account. For this reason, Bentham gave a substantial presence alongside other democratic institutions in his political theory. His awareness that government-controlled newspapers could skew the debate lent all the more weight to the demand for vigilance and helps explain why the liberty of the press assumed such an important place in his writings on constitutional reform. Barker demonstrates her awareness of the contemporary sensibilities surrounding the issue in the opening pages of her first chapter, but does not pursue the matter to locate it in the context of emerging democratic thought. However, this is a minor quibble when measured against the substantial contributions made by this thoroughly researched and compact essay to our understanding of newspapers in eighteenth-century England.