Echo's of Yesteryear

The "Echo buildings'" today as modernised flats.

The first edition of the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette was printed on 22 December 1873, on a flat-bed press in Press Lane, Sunderland. Five hundred copies of the four-page issue were produced at noon and 4 pm, and sold for a halfpenny each. At present the Echo is printed on a £12 million full-colour press, installed at its purpose-built base in Pennywell, Sunderland, in 1996. More than 30,000 copies are printed each day, which sell for 55 pence each.

Samuel Storey, a former teacher and future Sunderland mayor and Member of Parliament, founded the paper to provide a platform for his political views and to fill a gap in the newspaper market. Although the 100,000-strong population of Sunderland was already served by two weekly newspapers—The Sunderland Times and The Sunderland Herald—neither reflected the radical views held by Storey and his partners and there were no daily papers in the town. Storey promised readers in the first edition that, if things went wrong, "the Echo would try its best to put them right". But he added: "Always with moderation and without esteeming all those who oppose us as fools and knaves." Early copies of the Echo included lengthy reports of Liberal meetings, and critical articles on Liberal opponents.

The Sunderland Echo was launched with an initial investment of £3,500, raised by donations of £500 each from Storey and his business partners. Those joining the venture were Quaker banker Edward Backhouse, shipbroker and MP Edward Temperley Gourley, shipbuilder and MP Sir Charles Palmer, newspaper editor Richard Ruddock, rope-maker Thomas Glaholm and draper Thomas Scott Turnbull. Lack of experience—only Ruddock had previous knowledge of newspaper management—and over-optimistic estimates of costs meant that the initial funds were quickly exhausted. Storey later admitted: "In our childlike, simple ways, we thought this might be sufficient, but in a few months all the money was gone, so we paid in another £3,500 and that soon went too." As the prospect of any great financial success receded, Ruddock, Gourley and Palmer withdrew from the project. Storey, however, remained dedicated to the idea, and took on their shares.
A further £7,000 in investment from Storey enabled the remaining partners to abandon the "wheezing flat-bed press"[21] and, in July 1876, the Echo moved to new premises at 14 Bridge Street, Sunderland.

Bridge Street remained the home of the Echo for the next 100 years. Old buildings were demolished, new machine and composing rooms built on West Wear Street and two rotary presses installed just before the move, each capable of printing 24,000 copies an hour. These changes brought about increased circulation, but it took another seven years before the Echo made a profit. It was a time of intense competition; the Sunderland Times converted from a bi-weekly to a daily paper in the same month as the Echo moved to Bridge Street, and Tory supporters started a paper of their own, the Sunderland Daily Post. The Sunderland Times was the first to collapse, but the Post survived for the next quarter of a century, providing the Echo with an often bitter rival.

Following the deaths of two further partners, Backhouse in 1879 and Turnbull in 1880, Storey bought their shares to become the Echo's chief proprietor. A year later, in 1881, he met Scottish-born millionaire Andrew Carnegie, and formed a syndicate with him to set up new newspapers and buy up others. Among those purchased were the Wolverhampton Express and Star, the Northern Daily Mail in Hartlepool and the Portsmouth Evening News. An attempt to buy the Shields Gazette, the country's oldest daily newspaper, failed. The syndicate finally broke up in 1885, with Storey retaining control of the Echo, Hampshire Telegraph, Portsmouth News and the Northern Daily Mail. These papers formed the basis of a new company, Portsmouth and Sunderland Newspapers Ltd, formed in the 1930s.

© Wayman 2013