page_title: Sunderland Echo
section_title: Consolidation
hierarchical_section_title: Sunderland Echo / 20th century / Consolidation
caption_attribution_description: English: The pre-war days of hot metal newspaper production at the Sunderland Echo.
context_page_description: The Sunderland Echo is a daily newspaper serving the Sunderland, South Tyneside and East Durham areas of North East England. The newspaper was founded by Samuel Storey, Edward Backhouse, Edward Temperley Gourley, Charles Palmer, Richard Ruddock, Thomas Glaholm and Thomas Scott Turnbull in 1873, as the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette. Designed to provide a platform for the Radical views held by Storey and his partners, it was also Sunderland's first local daily paper.
  The inaugural edition of the Echo was printed in Press Lane, Sunderland on 22 December 1873; 1,000 copies were produced and sold for a halfpenny each. The Echo survived intense competition in its early years, as well as the depression of the 1930s and two World Wars. Sunderland was heavily bombed in the Second World War and, although the Echo building was undamaged, it was forced to print its competitor's paper under wartime rules. It was during this time that the paper's format changed, from a broadsheet to its current tabloid layout, because of national newsprint shortages.
context_section_description: The new century saw the Echo falling behind the times in its production methods. Established as a "leading daily newspaper", it was one of the last to still be setting type by hand in 1900. This changed in 1902, when Linotype lead-setting machines were brought in to set type mechanically. A landslide victory for the Liberal Party followed at the 1906 General Election, which heralded a new era for the Echo. The paper's old rival, the Sunderland Daily Post, was discontinued six months later, and the Football Echo was launched on 7 September 1907.
  World War I brought its own difficulties for the Echo. Reporters went off to battle and, after the cost of newsprint soared, the paper was forced to double in price to a penny. The Echo's 50th anniversary in 1923 was marked by a visit from company chairman Samuel Storey. Storey died two years later, three months after his eldest son Fred, and the chairmanship passed to another Samuel—Fred's elder son. In the same year, plans were laid to improve the Bridge Street premises. The work included enlarging the printing works and was completed by the end of the 1920s.
caption: The pre-war days of hot metal newspaper production at the Echo
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