The Morning Post was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by The Daily Telegraph.

The paper was founded by John Bell. Originally a Whig paper, it was purchased by Daniel Stuart (1766-1846) in 1795, who made it into a moderate Tory organ. A number of well-known writers contributed, including Coleridge, Lamb, Mackintosh, Southey, and Wordsworth. In the seven years of Stuart's proprietorship, the paper's circulation rose from 350 to over 4,000.

Later the paper was acquired by a Lancashire papermaker named Crompton. In 1848 he hired Peter Borthwick, a Scot who had been a conservative MP for Evesham 1835-1847, as editor, and when Peter died in 1852, his son Algernon Borthwick took over. During the 1850s, the Post was very closely associated with the Palmerston ministry.

With the aid of Andrew Montagu, Borthwick purchased the Post in 1876. His son Oliver Borthwick (1873-1905) was business manager and editor, but died young, and upon the father's death in 1908 control went to his daughter Lilias (1871-1965), wife of Seymour Henry, 7th Earl Bathurst (1864-1943).

The paper was noted for its attentions to the activities of the powerful and wealthy, its interest in foreign affairs, and in literary and artistic events. It began regular printing of notices of plays, concerts, and operas in the early 20th century, and is said to have been the first daily paper in London to do this.

Howell Arthur Gwynne (1865-1950) took over as editor in 1911. The Bathursts sold the paper to a consortium organized by the Duke of Northumberland in 1924, who then sold it to William Berry in 1937. Although the expectation was that the Morning Port remain a separate title, it was later dropped.

Reference

• Wilfrid Hindle, The Morning Post, 1772-1937: Portrait of a Newspaper (Greenwood, 1974) ISBN 0-8371-7243-8

External link

• Some 20th-century bits (http://www.ketupa.net/iliffe1.htm)