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How big’s a newspaper?
The 1700s saw the establishment of many newspapers - by 1725 there were 12 London newspapers and 25 provincial papers, including the Gloucester Journal. Governments soon grew resentful of them due to their criticism of official policies and so they tried to subdue them by various means including censorship, licensing, taxation, bribery and prosecution. The Stamp Act of 1712 was an act passed to create a new tax on publishers, particularly of newspapers. It levied a tax of a penny per whole newspaper sheet, a halfpenny for a half sheet and one shilling per advert contained within. To counter the tax, newspaper publishers simply increased the size of their papers and reduced the number of pages. Although the tax hit cheaper papers and popular readership harder than wealthy consumers (because it formed a higher proportion of the purchase price) it didn’t really slow circulation and by 1753 the total number of newspapers sold yearly in Britain amounted to just under 7.5 million.
GA Ref.No: GJ/1839
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