A Brief History of the Observer
The Observer is part of the Guardian Media Group; owned by the Scott Trust, together with The Guardian and Manchester Evening News. It is printed weekly on Sundays in the Berliner (mid-size) format and as of December 2008, it has an average weekly circulation of 420,323 copies. Editorial articles in The Observer generally take a political stance that is slightly to the right of its sister paper, The Guardian. The newspaper takes a liberal social democratic line on most issues.
The first edition of The Observer was printed by W.S. Bourne on 4th December 1791, making it the world’s first and oldest Sunday newspaper.
The Observer has since had a number of owners. The newspaper was purchased by William Innell Clement in 1814 and Julius Beer bought the paper in 1870. On the death of Julius Beer in 1891, the newspaper was inherited by his son Frederick. Frederick’s wife Rachel became editor of the paper, a position she held until the death of Frederick in 1904. Rachel Beer also edited The Sunday Times newspaper, which she had bought in 1893.
The Observer was sold by the executors of Frederick Beer’s will to Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) of The Daily Mail in 1905. In 1911, William Waldorf Astor (1st Viscount Astor) purchased the newspaper from the Harmsworth family. The Observer would remain in the Astor family for over sixty-five years. Waldorf Astor (2nd Viscount Astor) inherited the paper when his father died in 1919. Waldorf’s position and peerage helped his wife, Nancy Astor, become the first female MP to sit in the House of Commons. The newspaper was a firm supporter of the Conservative Party at this time due to Astor’s ownership and the editorship of J L Garvin. The Observer declared itself non-partisan after Garvin had been forced to resign in 1942.
The Observer first carried news stories on the front page in modern times on 1st November 1942. The front cover had previously been dedicated to advertisements, which had helped to contribute towards the cost of producing the newspaper.
Waldorf Astor handed control of The Observer to his sons in 1948. David Astor held the position of editor for twenty-seven years and he also turned the publication into a trust-owned newspaper. In 1977, the Astor brothers sold the Observer to the American oil company, Atlantic Richfield (now known as ARCO), who then sold the newspaper to Lonrho in 1981. The Observer became the sister paper of The Guardian newspaper in June 1993, when it was acquired by the Guardian Media Group.
The Observer was published as a broadsheet newspaper for over two-hundred years. However, the paper published its final broadsheet edition on 1st January 2006. The following issue was printed in the Berliner (mid-size) format on 8th January 2006.
The Observer Supplements
“The Observer” colour magazine was first printed on 6th September 1964 and it remains as one of the newspaper’s main supplements. The paper provides a variety of other weekly supplements, including “Sport“, “Review“, “Television“, “Escape” and “Business & Media”. The Observer also publishes four monthly magazines, which are printed weekly in rotation. These magazines cover the subjects of Sport, Music, Women and Food.