The oldest surviving Belfast News Letter editions from the 1700s are to be preserved digitally

The earliest editions of this, the world’s oldest English language daily newspaper, are to be preserved on digital.

​Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, and David Montgomery, the News Letter owner, have met at the Linen Hall library in Belfast to unveil the historic project. They reviewed editions of the paper to be digitised from the 1700s

The News Letter was first published in 1737 (explained below). The digitising is being delivered by the UK government, as part of commitments in last year’s Safeguarding the Union command paper that reflected last year’s deal between the DUP and the then Conservative government to restore Stormont.

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The first edition of the Belfast News Letter was printed on September 6 1737 in the then Julian calendar (September 17 in the Gregorian calendar used today). This year the paper will mark its 288th anniversary.

​The News Letter editor Ben Lowry explains early 1700s editions that will be digitised to David Montgomery, owner of the News Letter, and Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland,  at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast. Picture Stephen Davison, Pacemakerplaceholder image
​The News Letter editor Ben Lowry explains early 1700s editions that will be digitised to David Montgomery, owner of the News Letter, and Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland,  at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast. Picture Stephen Davison, Pacemaker

A government press release said: “To strengthen understanding of Northern Ireland’s cultural traditions around the world, the Northern Ireland Office is working in partnership with the British Library and FindMyPast to expand the online collection of the historic publication in the British Newspaper Archive. Building on previous preservation and scanning initiatives, the digitisation will make these copies from three centuries of the historic Belfast title accessible online for the first time.”

In both 2012/13 and 2017/18 the News Letter ran an On This Day 275 years ago and then On This Day 280 years ago in which we published excerpts of what had been reported on the relevant dates 275 and 280 years previously (1738/9). No other English language paper has run such a column because none has reached such an age.

We pointed out some of those papers and excerpts to Mr Benn, including early adverts for a boat travelling out to the then British colonies of north America, when he visited the Linen Hall Library last week, where early copies of the News Letter are held. He also saw and read aloud parts of a famous edition from August 1776 that reported the July 4 Declaration of Independence – the news took weeks to cross the Atlantic.

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There was once a charming myth that the News Letter had been the first paper in Europe to report the founding document of the US, but a history we published in 2012 on our 275th birthday disproved it

Among the papers that are being digitised is this very first surviving edition of the Belfast News Letter, from October 1738, a year after the paper was launched in the autumn of 1737. The rare copy is held at the Linen Hall library in Belfast. Picture Stephen Davison, Pacemakerplaceholder image
Among the papers that are being digitised is this very first surviving edition of the Belfast News Letter, from October 1738, a year after the paper was launched in the autumn of 1737. The rare copy is held at the Linen Hall library in Belfast. Picture Stephen Davison, Pacemaker

This project will ensure a worldwide audience can see the newspaper’s reportage of events, including the political situation in Ireland from the late 1700s, after the American and then French revolutions. Originals of the News Letter are being provided in microfilm and newspaper format by the British Library, to be digitised by the online platform Findmypast, which has spent nearly 15 years working on a collaborative project to digitise the British Library’s vast newspaper collection. The archive is then made available online through the British Newspaper Archive and on Findmypast, where it can be viewed freely at the British Library sites in London and Yorkshire, as well as at any library or by any private individual around the world with a subscription.

Speaking after his visit, Mr Benn said: “The News Letter’s status as the longest-running continuously published English language daily newspaper in the world is an important part of Northern Ireland’s unique cultural heritage. As set out in the Safeguarding the Union command paper, the UK government is committed to digitising these historical archives to promote the richness of Northern Ireland’s traditions around the world, including in nations with historic ties, such as the United States.”

David Montgomery, executive chairman of the News Letter’s owners, National World plc, said: “In a history that spans four different centuries, the News Letter has been in the frontline of local and global news and opinion – it was already in its fortieth year when it covered the US Declaration of Independence. In the 1990s it and other Northern Ireland papers helped pave the pathway to peace.

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“Today The News Letter is often a solitary and essential promoter of its community’s rich heritage. The digital archive is an eternal reminder of that crucial, continuing role of reliable independent journalism.”

The secretary of state for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn views historic copies of the News Letter on microfilm at the Linen Hall library with the News Letter owner David Montgomery, who is executive chairman of National World. Picture Stephen Davison Pacemaker February 26 2025placeholder image
The secretary of state for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn views historic copies of the News Letter on microfilm at the Linen Hall library with the News Letter owner David Montgomery, who is executive chairman of National World. Picture Stephen Davison Pacemaker February 26 2025

The Northern Ireland Office also said that the UK government “continues to make progress on the delivery of the commitments made in” Safeguarding the Union.

Sarah Bush, Managing Director of Findmypast and the British Newspaper Archive, said: “As the trusted partner of many iconic British and Irish institutions, we work to digitise millions of records from our nation’s history and make them accessible to the public online.

“Alongside the British Library, we’re delighted to make this unique and culturally important title available to be searched and viewed on Findmypast and the British Newspaper Archive, offering a fascinating window into centuries of Northern Ireland’s history as it happened.

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Beth Gaskell, Lead Curator of News and Moving Image at the British Library, said: “The British Library cares for one of the world’s greatest news archives with over 60 million issues of British and overseas newspapers dating back to the 1600s, as well as ever expanding collections of radio, television, and web news.“We are thrilled to be collaborating with Findmypast and the UK government to build on the existing collection of the News Letter available through the British Newspaper Archive.”

There are no English language daily newspapers older than the Belfast News Letter but there are a number of weekly titles.

For a while the News Letter was owned by the same company, Johnston Press, as the Stamford Mercury, a weekly that dates to 1712.

Of daily papers, we are at least a century older than most and are almost 50 years older even than The Times (of London), which began publication in 1785 as the Universal Daily Register. It was a daily from that first edition, whereas we were published twice a week until we became a daily in the 1800s. Thus, by one measure – of papers that have always been dailies – The Times is the oldest.

So the most accurate way to describe our record is:

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Of English language newspapers in the world that now publish daily, the News Letter is the oldest

There were until recently four older dailies than us, but none publish in English. One of those titles, the German language Wiener Zeitung based in Vienna, ceased to be a daily in 2023, becoming web only. It was founded in 1703 but did not publish in World War II, so we were already in a rarer historical category of ‘continuously published’ papers (having never been out of print).

The Gazzetta di Mantova in Italy was launched a staggering 359 years ago, in 1664. And the German Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung (1705) and Hanauer Anzeiger (1725) still seem to be dailies. Russia has a paper that supposedly dates to 1703, the Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, but it is a paper launched by the communists in 1918 rebranded in 1991 as the older title.​

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