Manchester’s Guardian: 200 years of the Guardian newspaper

Guardian Exhibit

The Manchester Guardian was founded by John Edward Taylor (1791-1844) in 1821, two years after the Peterloo Massacre. Under the editorship of the legendary Charles Prestwich Scott (1846-1932), it was transformed from an essentially provincial journal into a newspaper of national and international standing - reflected in its change of name to the Guardian in 1959.

Its archive dates from the newspaper’s foundation to the early 1970s, just after its move to London; later material is held at the Guardian News and Media Archive in London.

The correspondence and dispatches in the archive form an outstanding source for almost every aspect of late 19th- and 20th-century history, from the Boer War to Vietnam. There is also a very full set of records relating to the newspaper as a business.