SCOTTISH NEWSPAPERS

Historically, the Scottish newspaper came into being in the 17th century, some years after its English counterpart. News was first transmitted to Scotland from London and abroad by means of news‐sheets. However, the preponderance of foreign news tended to limit their interest, as far as readers were concerned, mainly to the Church and to men of letters, and it took some time for the newspaper habit to take hold in Scotland. The earliest surviving Scottish newspaper, in that it was published in Scotland and dealt with Scottish affairs, was Mercurius Scoticus published in Leith in 1651. It was followed by a handful of other titles over the next few decades but by the 18th century the situation had begun to change. More newspaper titles were produced in Scotland, and they began to carry local news as well as news from London and abroad. Advertisements were introduced, in the first instance, mainly for patent medicines and notices of entertainments. Governments recognized at an early stage that newspapers were a potential source of revenue and, in consequence, a newspaper stamp tax was imposed on all weekly newspapers in 1712. This tax, which was dubbed “tax on knowledge”, was strongly resented by the newspaper proprietors, who set about evading it as best they could, and in doing so determined the format of many of the newspapers of the period which were specially designed to circumvent the tax.