Newspapers in the Archives and Heritage Service You may have
wondered why some newspapers - for example The Birmingham Post,
The Guardian - are so large that they are awkward to hold. In
the eighteenth century the government imposed a substantial tax
on newspapers. They could only be printed on the stamped sheets
of paper sold by the government. The Worcester Journal
complained ' the Stamp'd Paper will come to near Three Fifths of
the Money the Newspaper is to be sold for.' Because the tax was
per sheet of paper, the pages grew larger and larger and the
print became smaller and smaller to include more news. Most
newspapers continued as broadsheets until the second half of the
twentieth century, presumably because the machinery was set up
for printing them in this way. Originally most news was taken
from the London papers, especially the London Gazette, which
held official government announcements. Local papers also
contained many advertisements. Newspapers were expensive, so
were read mainly by the well-to-do