The English Mercurie Hoax and the Early History of the Newspaper

Abstract

In 1794 the Scottish antiquarian George Chalmers (1742-1825) undertook research into the origin of newspapers, "those pleasant vehicles of instruction, those entertaining companions of our mornings" for his biography of the Scottish publisher and scholar Thomas Ruddiman (1764-1757). After assessing the historical evidence, he declared that the first newspaper, which he defined as a regularly printed gazette of news, was English. It may gratify our national pride to be told, that mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burleigh for the first newspaper. The epoch of the Spanish Armada is also the epoch of a genuine newspaper. In the British Museum, there are several newspapers , which had been printed while the Spanish fleet was in the English Channel, during the year 1588. It was a wise policy, to prevent, during a moment of general anxiety, the danger of false reports, by publishing real information. And the earliest newspaper is entitled, THE ENGLISH MERCURIE, which, by Authority, was "imprinted at London by Christopher Barker, her Highnesses printer, 1588". 1 Although Chalmers noted some oddities about this example (it was printed in "Roman, not in black, letter" and had certain anachronisms), his discovery was celebrated in literary journals and magazines. 2 Over the following decades, it was accepted as authoritative in a series of reference works, beginning with the fifth edition of Isaac Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature (1807), 3 and thereafter the fourth volume of John Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1812), 4 Johann Beckmann's Concise History of Ancient Institutions (1823); 5 and from there in various encyclopaedias including Encyclopaedia Londinensis (1820), 6 Encyclopaedia Americana (1832), 7 Brockhaus's Conversations-Lexikon (1832), 8 and Encyclopaedia Metropolitana (1845). 9 There was only one problem with this patriotic discovery: it was a hoax. In 1839 The English Mercurie was exposed as a fake by Thomas Watts (1811-1869), Assistant Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum. His published Letter to Antonio Panizzi Esq Keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum (dated 16 November 1839) declared that "the claims of the English to the invention of printed Newspapers are unfortunately of no validity, and that the 'earliest Newspaper' in the Museum is an imposture". Rather than merely repeating Chalmers's claim, he had examined the item himself. "On the book being brought, I had not examined it two minutes, before, to my surprise, I was forced to conclude that the whole was a forgery". Consulting with his colleagues, John Winter Jones and Antonio Panizzi, they noticed various "marks of unauthenticity" and declared it was impossible that the printing was from 1588. The English Mercurie was, he concluded, "an imposition". 10 When he returned to the topic of this "spurious production" a decade later, in an article for the Gentleman's Magazine, he was able to identify the author as Philip Yorke, second earl of Hardwicke (1720-1790), from his h...