Picture the scene, the date is late 1855, a young married couple in their 20s are heading purposefully up Market St towards their new business.  It is the Bideford Gazette newspaper.  The couple are soberly dressed as befits members of the Wesleyan Church community.

The Honeys, for this is who they are, Thomas and Eliza, are newly arrived from Launceston with a gleam of excitement in their eyes for their new project.  All over the country local newspapers are being set up.  The prohibitive taxes imposed by successive governments to limit and control how much information ordinary people are able to access (in case this should lead to revolution) have been lifted, and there is an explosion of news.

Thomas and Eliza publish the first edition of their paper on 1 January 1856.  Thomas writes “On making our first appearance before the public, in this form, and on the very day when we pass from the old year to the new, we cannot but feel the responsibility that must attach itself to us,” 

Happy news was announced in their paper later than year, on 19 June: the birth of a daughter, Mary. 

Events then took a sad and unexpected turn and on 25 November 1856: Thomas’ death was announced in this way in the paper “21^st inst, at Market Hill Bideford after a long and painful illness which he bore with Christian resignation, Mr Thomas Honey, printer and publisher of this Gazette, aged 27”.

Eliza, at 25 with a 5-month-old baby, was left alone.  Doubtless many people expected the paper to be closed or sold but Eliza was stronger than that.  Perhaps out of loyalty, or necessity, or sheer determination and pride, she took a momentous decision.  On 16 December 1856 she announced that she would carry on publishing the paper and advertised, where else but in her own paper, for a female servant to take charge of a baby – Wesleyan preferred. 

That decision made her the only female newspaper editor in the whole of fiercely patriarchal Victorian England.  

The business flourished and the paper recorded all the richness of local life and brought news of national and international events to this quiet corner of England.  

The papers have been read and indexed by volunteers at The Bideford and District Community Archive and the stories of families and local life can be read by anyone. Just ask www.bidefordarchive.