This Day In History

11 March: First UK newspaper printed

The Daily Courant was the first regular daily newspaper to be published in the United Kingdom. It was conceived and published above a pub by a woman with excellent grammar, Elizabeth Mallet.

Its first publication date was 11 March 1702 when the initial single page edition rolled off the press above the White Hart pub in Fleet Street.

The paper consisted of a single page with two columns. Mallet's overriding mantra was to “publish only foreign news”, assuring her readers that she would not add any opinion of her own because people have "sense enough to make reflections for themselves."

Deodorants causing cancer, sportsmen shagging their friends’ wives and musicians eating hamsters were rarely featured. Though the paper did have a natty “celebrity” pull-out on a Saturday with a TV guide and lots of inane copy about wallpaper.

It lasted until 1735.