Material Occurrences both Foreign and Domestick

THE Salisbury Journal was not the first newspaper to hit the streets of the city. The short-lived Salisbury Post Man, launched in 1715, pipped it but disappeared not long afterwards.

But when the first copy of the Journal went on sale in 1729, founding father Benjamin Collins could not have foreseen that, 275 years on, the title would still be going strong and steadily increasing its readership.

The son of a tallow chandler, Collins was 14 when he arrived in Salisbury - a small town bounded by the river running alongside its High Street on its west side and Culver Street to the east.

There were fields beyond Scots Lane to the north and the cathedral marked the southern boundary. Grand new houses were springing up in the Close, coffee houses lined Blue Boar Row, there was a theatre near the Cheese Market, and street lighting had just been introduced.

Collins joined his brother William in the book trade and became part owner of the Salisbury Journal.

Printed by hand, with all the characters individually typeset, it cost 2d a copy plus a halfpenny tax, went out of business after a year, but was successfully relaunched. Collins took over in 1740 following the death of his brother.

The editorial content of the newspaper in the early years was generally unconcerned with local issues but boasted news of "the most Material Occurrences both Foreign and Domestick".

Occasionally, a local story would surface.

The Salisbury Journal of March 12, 1738 published a list of grievances from "the weavers and other Rioters" and also recorded the demise of James Benet "who kept a Brandy-Shop near the Poultry Cross, died raveing mad, occasioned we hear by drinking great Quantities of spiritous Liquors".

There was extensive reporting from Salisbury Races, advertisements for quack cures for deafness and news of hiring markets in Marlborough and gall-stone removals from young children by junior surgeons.

Salisbury was still a profitable centre for the cloth industry and an important staging post for London-bound traffic, with 52 coaches a week passing through the city by 1773.

By the time the Salisbury Times was launched to compete with the Salisbury Journal in 1868, housing had crept along Fisherton Street and Devizes Road.

There were settlements at east Harnham, Milford and Fisherton Anger, and rail links had been established with Southampton, Bristol, London and Exeter.

Before the end of that century, Victoria Park had opened to celebrate the monarch's golden jubilee and the army had arrived, buying up 750 acres near Bulford and 60 square miles of Salisbury Plain.

Harnham and Bemerton became part of Salisbury City in 1927, the year the city celebrated the 700th anniversary of its charter and installed Lady Hulse as its first lady mayor.

Council housing started in 1920 and accelerated after the World War II, expanding the city further.

Various changes of ownership overtook the Journal but by the 1960s, both it and the Salisbury Times were under the ownership of Berrow's.

News International purchased the papers but by the 1980s, the Journal was struggling and, for a time, it looked as though the country's third oldest surviving newspaper would go under.

In 1983, Reed International bought the company, selling it on to Southern Newspapers in 1987.

Computer technology replaced the hot metal presses and in the 1990s the Journal passed into the hands of, first, Newscom and, currently, Newsquest - itself a subsidiary of American media giant Gannett.

Today the Journal is published in three weekly editions - Salisbury, Amesbury and the Forest - and, as it heads towards its fourth century, sales are at an all-time high.