The Sunday Times borrowed a famous name and then kept inventing newspaper firsts
The Sunday Times had nothing to do with The Times when it took that name in 1822. It began as The New Observer, apparently hoping to ride another paper's success. Over the next century and a half it racked up firsts, from the biggest newspaper illustration of its day to Britain's first colour supplement.
Henry White launched it in February 1821 and sold it two years later to the radical politician Daniel Whittle Harvey. Its wood engraving of Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838 was the largest illustration yet printed in a British paper, and in 1841 it serialised a novel, among the first papers to do so. In 1887 Alice Anne Cornwell, who had made a fortune from Australian mining, bought it partly to promote her company and partly as a present for her lover Phil Robinson, whom she made editor and later married. Rachel Sassoon Beer, already the first woman to run a national newspaper, edited it alongside The Observer until 1901.
The Berry brothers bought it in 1915 and kept innovating: a 40-page issue in 1930 and news instead of adverts on the front page in 1940. Ian Fleming, future creator of James Bond, joined as foreign manager in November 1945. In 1958 a separate Review section made it the first paper to publish two sections regularly, and the colour magazine followed in 1962, its launch cover showing Jean Shrimpton photographed by David Bailey.
Under Harold Evans, editor from 1967 to 1981, it became a campaigning paper, most famously over thalidomide. When a court blocked further articles in 1972, the paper took its case to the European Court of Human Rights, which found the injunction breached freedom of expression. Less gloriously, in 1983 it bought serialisation rights to the Hitler Diaries, which turned out to be forgeries despite being authenticated by Hugh Trevor-Roper.
Rupert Murdoch's News International bought the paper, along with The Times, in 1981, promising to preserve editorial independence. It still publishes the Rich List, has stayed broadsheet while rivals shrank to tabloid, and in March 2020 outsold The Sunday Telegraph and The Observer put together.
Source: The Sunday Times
