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The past and future of The Observer



Stephen Pritchard, reader's editor
Sunday August 5, 2001
The Observer


Do you know which newspaper was edited by a man who prided himself on 'never writing an article on any subject under any circumstances whatever'? Or employed a reporter who witnessed a Prime Minister's assassination and then apprehended the killer? Or campaigned for an end to the death penalty, exposed the iniquities of apartheid and prompted the founding of Amnesty International?

The answer is The Observer. (The reluctant writer was Lewis Doxat, who edited the paper from 1807 to 1857; the reporter Vincent Dowling, who scooped the death of Spencer Perceval in 1812.)



The chequered but illustrious history of the world's oldest Sunday newspaper (we began life in 1791) has never been properly recorded - until now. Early next year we hope to have an archive and visitor centre open just across the street from our offices in London's Farringdon Road, dedicated to telling the story of The Observer and our sister paper the Guardian, and explaining how news is gathered today.

The Newsroom, as it will be called, will house an archive of papers, photographs and memorabilia. There will be a permanent exhibition on our history, using documents, portraits, a printing press, even the desk used by successive editors of the Pall Mall Gazette and The Observer. (The PMG was acquired by William Waldorf Astor in 1911, when he also bought control of The Observer from Lord Northcliffe. The first PMG editor inspired Arthur Pendennis in Thackeray's Pendennis. The name lives on in our diary.)

Jane Bown, our matchless photographer, has given her entire collection, an astonishing chronicle of life and times in Britain over the past 50 years, joining an archive of a million photographs.

A 90-seat lecture and debating theatre will give us a venue to discuss our work and provide temporary exhibition space, but perhaps the most important feature is an education department. Its five staff aim to have parties of schoolchildren and students at the centre every day. Access to the archive will be free and available to all, in the best traditions of the Scott Trust, owners of the Guardian and The Observer, which is spending £3.5 million on this project.

Former Observer staff are being generous with their time and memories, writing reminiscences and recording interviews for a sound archive. They are also turning out their attics and donating artefacts and documents, pictures and books. Donald Trelford (editor, 1975-1993) has been particularly generous, donating artefacts and memorabilia.

I am co-ordinating The Observer's contribution to the archive, working with the project's director, Luke Dodd, who set up the award-winning museum dedicated to the 1840s Irish Famine in County Roscommon, has run the Irish film archive, and was commissioned by Trinity College, Dublin, to write the text for a CD-Rom of The Book of Kells.

To contact Newsroom Director Luke Dodd email luke.dodd@guardian.co.uk or write to the address below. Contact Stephen Pritchard, Readers' Editor, by telephoning 020 7713 4656 Mon-Fri.

Mail to Readers' Editor, The Observer, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER, fax 020 7713 4279 or email reader@observer.co.uk
www.observer.co.uk/readerseditor









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