Episode 1 of 2

First Issue of the Daily Universal Register

Name: First Issue of the Daily Universal Register
Start: 1785-01-01
Location: London

When: 1 January 1785
Where: London
Part of: First issue of the Daily Universal Register published

John Walter published the first issue of the Daily Universal Register in London on 1 January 1785, following his unemployment.

Walter, who had lost his job in late 1784 due to an insurance company bankruptcy caused by a Jamaican hurricane, founded the newspaper. He served as editor for the initial publication, which began operations in London on the specified date.

Sources

The Times Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-27

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.