AS 1836 slipped away, Somerset was eagerly awaiting the first issue of a local newspaper on the last day of the year.

Now, 180 years later, the County Gazette is still here, informing you of weekly goings on in Taunton Deane and West Somerset. Chief reporter PHIL HILL charts the history of your favourite weekly newspaper from the 19th Century to the challenges and changes of the 21st Century...

IT all started with solicitor Edward William Cox, who published The Somerset County Gazette, Taunton, Bridgwater and Wells Chronicle and North Devon Journal on December 31, 1836.

The 3½d four-page broadsheet was “established by Public Subscription of the Nobility, Gentry and inhabitants of Somerset, to supply its commerce and agriculture with a general medium for communication and advertisements”.

Printed in Paul Street, Taunton, the front page was exclusively advertising, while local news was mainly political, though a report on Andrew Crosse’s claims to have created tiny insects caused a stir in the scientific world.

There were also national and foreign items.

The Gazette was selling 1,100 copies by 1840, when it cost 5d. The type was hand-set – it was not fully mechanised until about 1900 – and the press printed 300 copies an hour.

Printing offices were later established in Castle Green.

By its 50th anniversary, it boasted 12 pages, cost 3d, was printed on a steam- or gas-driven press and employed 60 staff.

The news consisted of town and village items, court reports, national and international articles, farming, politics, religion, and a serial story.

In 1892, the editor died in his office.

The First World War brought paper shortages and the Gazette was reduced from 14 to eight pages until 1919.

During the 1928 General Strike, an emergency motor service delivered newspapers around the county.

In the Second World War copies were sent overseas to boost troop morale In 1948, the Gazette ran front page news for the first time.

In 1965, the County Gazette was sold to Berrow’s, later taken on by News International, with sales topping 30,000.

The printing press at Tangier closed in 1985 and the Gazette was then printed in Worcester.

In 1982, Reed International took over Berrow’s, and the Gazette and its sister titles became South-West Counties Newspapers, with the offices moving from Castle Green to St James Street.

In 1985, new technology arrived – typesetting machines and the ‘stone’ were replaced by keyboard operators and computers.

Instead of lines of heavy metal type there was bromide paper bearing the news and advertisements, which were placed on make-up sheets, made into printing plates and sent to the press.

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Subsequently, the Gazette became part of Southern Newspapers, then Newscom and, more recently, Newsquest Media Group, the British arm of American media giant, Gannett.

Nowadays, the whole process is computerised.

The paper went tabloid in 1991, while colour photos appeared from 1997.

More recently, the Gazette, after around 10,000 editions, has gone online – countygazette.co.uk delivers news 24 hours a day, and we’re also on Facebook and Twitter.

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