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Founding of The Economist

When: 1843
Where: London
Part of: The Economist newspaper first published in London

James Wilson established The Economist in London in 1843 as a weekly newspaper to campaign for free trade and the repeal of the Corn Laws.

Wilson, a Scottish businessman, founded the publication in 1843. He served as the sole proprietor and chief editor for sixteen years. The newspaper was initially circulated to muster support for abolishing the British Corn Laws, a system of import tariffs. A prospectus from August 1843 enumerated thirteen areas of coverage, including economics and business.

Sources

The Economist Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
James Wilson (businessman) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-05-13

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.