On the day that the Evening Press takes on a bright new compact look, we turn back the pages on this newspaper's long history in the city.

IS it me, or has something changed around here?

Few readers would aspire to be squatter and fatter but that's what most of you wanted from your favourite newspaper. And so here we are, compact and modern.

The change is one of the most significant in the history of this paper. That history began 123 years ago next month, when the Evening Press hit the streets for the first time. It was only rechristened the Yorkshire Evening Press in 1905, the same year in which the Saturday Football Press first appeared.

It was far from York's first newspaper, however. That honour goes to the York Mercury, published for the first time on February 23 1719 (or 1718 on the old-style calendar).

Other names which have come and gone include the York Courant, the York Herald, the York Gazetteer, the York Telegraph and the York Chronicle.

Victorian newspaper tycoon William Hargrove created the Evening Press. In the first, four-page edition, he wrote: "Our general idea is to provide a comprehensive and readable journal, well arranged, clearly printed and in a convenient form."

Unlike its predecessors, the Evening Press was to last. In October 1932, the newspaper brought out a special Jubilee Edition, price one penny. The printing press had been set in motion by the Lord Mayor Of York, Alderman RH Vernon Wragge.

The front page carried the headline, "For 50 Years We Have Been YOUR newspaper". The rest of the page was taken up by advertisements, as remained the style until 1945.

One of these ads revealed that theatregoers could be entertained by the Whoopee Makers at the Empire. Another boasted: "Boyes have been regular advertisers in this paper ever since opening - more than 25 years. When the Press reaches 100 may Boyes still be in the news."

Inside, the special edition chronicled the first half century of the newspaper.

Under a picture of a fleet of Evening Press vans, the motoring editor revealed how the circulation of evening newspapers was limited to the immediate vicinity in the early days.

"Twenty-five years ago every newspaper almost entirely relied upon railways to carry the news over a wide area," he wrote.

"But recently motor cars have been brought into use with the result that a fleet of vehicles for distribution purposes form the most important part of the equipment of a newspaper office."

He'd obviously forgotten the printing press.

Inevitably the jubilee edition looked back to the journal's origins. "When the first number of the Press was published, Britain had just crushed a revolt of Arabi Pasha in Egypt and the country was discussing the victory of Tel-el Kebir...

"And so in looking through the files of the Press we find the history of England and the world carefully recorded and commented on right through the Eighties, the 'Naughty Nineties' to the opening of the present century with 'The Soldiers of the Queen' in South Africa, and 14 years later facing the greatest fighting machine in the world in Flanders, to the present when we find the world in the midst of an economic crisis unequalled in history."

The changing technology was also recorded. First issues were set up by hand by compositors. The introduction of Empire type-setting machines were in turn followed by the Linotype.

"As to the receiving of news, in the early days of the Press we were dependent on the Post Office telegraph and the news envelopes carried on the railways, later, of course, taking full advantage of the telephone.

"We still use all, but we possess our own private wires, which link us to the ends of the earth, that the bulk of our copy comes to be printed by our own electric printing machines at hundreds of words to the minute."

In the near future, the 1932 edition predicted, "we shall receive pictures by wire, as is already being done by one or two newspapers".

Just as the Evening Press has moved with the times today, so we had in the Thirties.

"Our readers will have observed that in these last years we have changed our type faces and our method of presenting news.

"As fashions change in clothes, so do the production and presentation of news."

The article concluded: "We have not referred to editors, sub-editors and reporters.

"They remain very much what they were 50 years ago. They are hard-working servants of the public but liable to make mistakes."

A definition that could apply today.

There was a self-congratulatory air to the leader column. "For 50 years we have attempted to be your guide, mentor and friend. We have complimented and we have scolded and we shall continue to do so, but always we hope the same bond of friendship will unite us."

Many difficult days lay ahead for York and its daily paper. The Coney Street site of the Evening Press offices and printing works withstood heavy bombing during the Second World War.

Much printing machinery was destroyed but the paper kept coming out. For a time production was transferred to the Yorkshire Evening News in Leeds and - although the York works were out of action - local readers were able to read of the air attacks on the city in the paper on the same day.

Today's new shape is not new. The Evening Press first experimented with a compact size in 1950, but it only lasted a few years. Some time after the paper was taken over by Westminster Press in 1953, it was restored to its old size.

The co-founder of Westminster Press and the first chairman of the Evening Press was John Bowes Morrell. This great man, whose Burton Croft home our councillors have disgracefully condemned to demolition, summed up the role of this newspaper then and now.

"Our newspapers will always put service to the community first," he said.

"So long as there is a wrong to be righted, and an injustice to be removed, the columns of these papers will not be silent."

Updated: 11:07 Monday, September 06, 2004