Banbury Guardian

It’s published by Northamptonshire Newspapers, part of nationwide regional newspaper publishers Johnston Press‘s South Midlands division. The editorial offices are in Banbury.

It was founded in 1838 as The Guardian, or Monthly Poor Law Register. The purpose of its founder, William Potts, was to “disabuse the public mind when unfounded reports, likely to create alarm, and excite suspicion are circulated by those who, from the situations they occupy, may be supposed to possess better information than do the public generally”. Five years later it became a weekly publication; it adopted its present name in 1853. Potts, his son John, and his son William, edited the newspaper in succession until 1947. It switched from broadsheet to tabloid format in March 2010.

It made history in March 1962, under its then owner Labour MP Woodrow Wyatt, when it became the first British newspaper to publish colour photographs in a normal edition, using the new web offset process.

Its freesheet companion, the Banbury Review, ceased publication in the first half of 2012.

It comes out on Thursdays.