London Gazette

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:London-gazette.gif The London Gazette is the oldest surviving English newspaper and the oldest continuously-published newspaper in the United Kingdom, having been first published on 7 November 1665. The Gazette is the official newspaper of the United Kingdom, wherein certain statutory notices are required to be published. It is not a conventional newspaper offering general news coverage, and does not have a large circulation.

The London Gazette was first published as the Oxford Gazette on 7 November 1665. Charles II and the Royal Court had moved to Oxford to escape the Great Plague of London, and courtiers were unwilling to touch, let alone read, London newspapers for fear of contagion. The Gazette was "Published by Authority" by Henry Muddiman, and its first publication is noted by Samuel Pepys in his diary. The King returned to London as the plague dissipated, and the Gazette moved too, with the first issue of the London Gazette (labelled No. 24) being published on 5 February 1666. However, the Gazette was not a newspaper in the modern sense: it was sent in manuscript by post to subscribers, not printed for sale to the general public.

Her Majesty's Stationery Office took over the publication of the Gazette in 1889.

In 2005 the London Gazette is published each day, except for Saturdays, Sundays, and Bank Holidays. Notices for the following, among others, are published:

Granting of Royal Assent to bills of the Parliament of the United Kingdom or of the Scottish Parliament
The issuance of writs of election when a vacancy occurs in the House of Commons
Appointments to certain public offices
Corporate and personal insolvency
Granting of awards of honours and military medals
Changes of names or of coats of arms

Also, Royal Proclamations and other Declarations are published in the Gazette. Her Majesty's Stationery Office is currently digitising these records for the entire 20th century, and the first 80 years (1900–1979) are currently available online.

In time of war, dispatches from the various conflicts are published in the London Gazette [1]. People referred to are said to have been mentioned in dispatches. When members of the armed forces are promoted, and these promotions are published here, the person is said to have been “gazetted”.

Being "gazetted" (or "in the gazette") sometimes also meant having official notice of one's bankruptcy published, as in the classic ten-line poem comparing the stolid yeomen of 1743 to the lavishly-spending faux-genteel farmers of 1843: "Old Style: Man, to the plough / Wife, to the cow / Girl, to the yarn / Boy, to the barn / And your rent will be netted. New Style: Man, Tally Ho! / Miss, piano / Wife, silk and satin / Boy, Greek and Latin / And you'll all be Gazetted." The phrase "gazetted fortune hunter" is also probably derived from this. Notices of engagement and marriage also used to be published in The Gazette.

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