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The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens, Royal Society of Arts , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English people novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous Reform movement....
, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in 1861 as "London Labour and the London Poor
London Labour and the London Poor

London Labour and the London Poor is a work of Victorian era journalism by Henry Mayhew. In the 1840s he observed, documented and described the state of working people in London for a series of articles in a newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, that were later compiled into book form....
".

first editor was William Woodfall. He was the first to report on proceedings in Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislature in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories....
 as a regular feature.






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The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens, Royal Society of Arts , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English people novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous Reform movement....
, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in 1861 as "London Labour and the London Poor
London Labour and the London Poor

London Labour and the London Poor is a work of Victorian era journalism by Henry Mayhew. In the 1840s he observed, documented and described the state of working people in London for a series of articles in a newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, that were later compiled into book form....
".

Founding

The first editor was William Woodfall. He was the first to report on proceedings in Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislature in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories....
 as a regular feature. Since note-taking was prohibited, he worked from memory, at least to the extent of writing notes outside the chamber. Woodfall's journalism slanted toward the Whig
British Whig Party

The Whigs are often described as one of two political party in Kingdom of England and later the United Kingdom from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries....
 party in the House of Commons
British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the British monarchy and the House of Lords ....
.

Newspapers of the time were subject to persecution by the government, and in typical fashion Woodfall was convicted of libel and spent a year in Newgate prison
Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Ancient Rome London Wall....
 in 1779. This fate befell some of his successors as well.

Later owners

The Chronicle was bought by James Perry
James Perry (journalist)

James Perry, born James Pirie was a United Kingdom journalist.Admitted to Marischal College, Aberdeen in 1771, he began studying for the Faculty of Advocates....
 in 1789, bringing the journal firmly down on the Whig side against the Tory
Tory

In the political tradition of some List of countries where English is an official language, the term Tory may refer to a variety of Political party and creeds since it was originally used in the late 17th century to describe opponents to the Whig Party ....
-owned London Gazette
London Gazette

The London Gazette is one of the official gazette of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the UK, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published....
. Circulation increased, and by 1810, the typical sale was 7,000 copies. The content often came from journalists labelled as radicals
Radicalism (historical)

The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later become a general term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order....
, a dangerous connotation in the aftermath of the French Revolution
French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
. William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt was an English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism. Hazlitt was a prominent English literary critic, grammarian and philosopher....
 joined to report on Parliament in 1813, by which time several charges of libel and seditious libel had been levelled against the newspaper and its contributors at one time or another, Perry being sentenced to three months in gaol in 1798.

Perry was succeeded by John Black, probably in 1817 when Perry developed a severe illness. It was Black who later employed Dickens, Mayhew, and John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill , United Kingdom philosopher, political economy, civil servant and Parliament of the United Kingdom, was an influential liberalism thinker of the 19th century....
. Perry died in 1821. Woodfall had died in 1803.

Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens, Royal Society of Arts , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English people novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous Reform movement....
 began reporting for the Chronicle in 1834. It was in this medium that he also began publishing short stories under the pseudonym
Pseudonym

A pseudonym, , is a fictitious alternative to a person's legal name. In some cases, pseudonyms are adopted because it is part of a cultural or organizational tradition, as in the case of Religious names used by members of some religious orders and "cadre names" used by Communist party leaders such as Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin....
 "Boz".

The articles by Henry Mayhew were published in 1849, accompanied by similar articles about other regions of the country, written by other journalists.

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