33/180 in the UK. History. The Guardian is a British daily newspaper published in London, England, that was founded in 1821. The Manchester Guardian was its initial name, and it was founded by cotton merchant John Edward Taylor. He hired the well-known editor of the time William Cobbett to write articles for the paper. Today, the paper is owned by the Graham family, who also own the Times Newspapers group. It has a regular circulation of more than 500,000 copies and an online audience of about 40 million people per month. It is ranked third behind The Sun and The Telegraph in terms of press coverage out of the three leading British newspapers. In 2014, The Guardian had the second-highest number of staff writers among all newspapers in the UK. These include notable names such as Peter Preston, Liz Bellamy, Patrick Wintour, and Olivia Solon. It also has one of the largest international bureaus in place today. There are news desks located in New York, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, and Bangalore with reporters stationed there to cover world affairs from these different geographical locations. The paper had a long-standing policy of not publishing letters to the editor until 1995, when it launched a "Letters" section. This section now includes reader submissions of about 150 words per day on average.