page_title: Samuel Storey
section_title: Publishing life
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Storey / Publishing life
caption_attribution_description: English: Sunderland Echo newspapers being loaded into vans at the Bridge Street printing works.
context_page_description: Samuel Storey was a British politician born in County Durham. He became a Member of Parliament for Sunderland and the main founder of the Sunderland Echo newspaper.
context_section_description: Samuel Storey was one of the original seven founders of the Sunderland Echo, a regional daily newspaper which is still published today. The first edition of the Echo 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 p.m., and sold for a ha'penny each. Today the Echo is printed on a £12 million full colour press, which was installed at its purpose-built base in Pennywell, Sunderland, in 1996. More than 44,000 tabloid copies are printed each day, which sell for 45p each.
  Storey founded the paper to fill a gap in both the newspaper and political markets. Although the 100,000-strong population of Sunderland was served by two weekly newspapers, there were no daily papers, and none at all reflecting the Radical views held by Storey and his partners. He 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 also 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 Charles Palmer, newspaper editor Richard Ruddock, rope-maker Thomas Glaholm and draper Thomas Scott Turnbull. Only Ruddock, however, had any knowledge of newspapers and the money was quickly used up.
  Ruddock, Gourley and Palmer withdrew from the venture early on and Storey took over their shares. A further £7,000 in investment enabled the remaining partners to abandon the "wheezing flat-bed press" and, in July 1876, the Echo was moved to a new premises at 14 Bridge Street, Sunderland. Bridge Street was to remain the home of The Echo for the next 100 years and, in 1923, Storey paid a visit to mark the paper's 50th anniversary. He died just two years later.
  Besides the Sunderland Echo, Storey also started the Tyneside Daily Echo in Gateshead in 1879, which was moved to Newcastle in 1880 and discontinued in 1888. But it was a partnership with Andrew Carnegie, from 1882 to 1885, which really saw his newspaper business take off. The pair started several new papers and bought up many existing ones. Their chain included the Wolverhampton Express and Wolverhampton Star, which was amalgamated as the Express and Star by the syndicate in 1884. Other papers in their stable were the Hampshire Telegraph, Portsmouth Evening News, the London Echo and the North Eastern Daily and Weekly Gazettes at Middlesbrough. Two papers which the syndicate tried, but failed, to buy were the Shields Gazette and the Northern Echo.
  One of its last purchases was the Northern Daily Mail, in Hartlepool. When the syndicate broke up in 1885, Storey retained the Northern Daily Mail, the Hampshire Telegraph, the Portsmouth Evening News, and his own Sunderland and Tyneside Echoes. These papers were to become the basis of his new business idea, Portsmouth and Sunderland Newspapers.
caption: The Echo is placed into delivery vans at the old base in Bridge Street, Sunderland, in the 1930s.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Echo Vans appropx 1943", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.1.3", "Image DateTime": "2008:07:04 16:21:21", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.4.9", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "238", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "398", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4567", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2998", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2142"}