Northern Echo Prospectus

John Hyslop Bell (The Northern Echo, 1869)

The projectors of the Northern Echo have undertaken to supply a want of the age and district, viz., a well-conducted, high-class Daily Newspaper, advocating Advanced Liberal opinions, and published at a price which will bring it within reach of all classes of the people.

Something less than this has, it is fair to admit, been attempted. Evening publications, consisting for the most part of a réchauffé of the intelligence first disseminated by the morning journals, have been from time to time produced in isolated towns. Far different is the object the projectors have in view. They avow a higher aim, and pledge themselves to the prosecution of a greatly more extensive undertaking. Their aim is to provide every morning, for rich and poor simultaneously, a carefully collated and neatly printed digest of the latest authentic intelligence on all matters of social, commercial, or political interest, and that at the lowest price charged for even the most ephemeral reprints.

Having regard to the rapidity of modern, progress, the augmented means of transit, and the great and growing eagerness for early information, evinced by all classes of the community, the projectors have come to the conclusion that a Halfpenny Morning Newspaper has become a necessity of the times; and they claim the honour of having taken the initiative in supplying that want. They are satisfied that the efficient maintenance of such a daily paper is not only eminently desirable, but also very possible; and not only a possibility, but one that may, by the intelligent application of recent improvements in newspaper machinery and management, be made a commercial success. Their project has already been cordially welcomed, and they will not be easily discouraged in their hope that capital, energy, and talent may reap a legitimate reward in so promising a sphere of public usefulness.

Possessing, beyond doubt, the greatest facilities for the collection of news and its speedy transmission throughout the whole of the Northern Counties, the projectors have chosen Darlington (South Durham) as their centre of operations.

The new journal will be printed in premises specially adapted for the purpose, by steam machinery manufactured expressly for the Northern Echo, and capable of printing the largest number of copies per hour yet printed by any machine of English manufacture hitherto produced.

A thoroughly organised system will be adopted for the conveyance of the papers by early trains to every station in the North of England, by the various lines of railway that radiate east, west, north, and south from Darlington; and a plan has been matured for reaching the more remote towns and villages at the earliest possible moment.