Cambridge Intelligencer

The Cambridge Intelligencer was an English weekly newspaper, appearing from 1793 to 1803, and edited by Benjamin Flower. The historian J. E. Cookson called it "the most vigorous and outspoken liberal periodical of its day".
Flower suffered imprisonment for contempt of the House of Lords, for remarks made in the "Intelligencer" against Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff. His case followed that of Gilbert Wakefield, followed a different procedure, and had a temporary chilling effect on radical publishing at the end of the 18th century.
Editorial policy.
The "Intelligencer" first appeared on 20 July 1793, and from the start opposed the French Revolutionary Wars. It was one of a number of provincial journals opposed to the administration of William Pitt the Younger; and managed to sustain its editorial independence. It opposed the Anglo-Irish Union.
The "Intelligencer" was considered to represent the standpoint of rational dissent, and was called "the most infamous paper that ever disgraced the press", by the "Anti-Jacobin". By 1796 James Montgomery was asking the editor acting for him not to reprint material from the "Intelligencer". Flower was able to continue editorial work while confined to Newgate Prison in 1799, lodging with the gaol keeper John Kirby.
The paper ran editorials, an innovation associated with the radical press of this period. Flower was anticipated in this development, which had been in use for a few years in the "Sheffield Register" of Joseph Gales, the "Derby Mercury" of William Ward, and Montgomery's "Sheffield Iris".
Advertisements.
The advertising content of the "Intelligencer" was light, but included promotions related to Stourbridge Fair. The publisher Martha Gurney advertised the trial transcripts of her brother Joseph. A work of Thomas Oldfield on electoral boroughs was given space by Flower. James Lackington advertised his second-hand book emporium.
Circulation.
The "Intelligencer" functioned for a time more like a national newspaper, with circulation handled by representatives in Carmarthen, Dartmouth, Glasgow and York. The copies sold rose at times to more than 2000, when a typical provincial newspaper would expect several hundreds. There was distribution during 1795–7 in Leeds, for example, by Thomas Langdon.
Initially the paper cost 3"d", but a change in the newspaper tax in 1797 brought the price up to 6"d".; and the circulation dropped, on the paper's own figures, from about 2,700 to the region of 1,800. In 1798 the paper still claimed it could be bought in 45 market towns. There was a significant market in Scotland.
Contributors.
Others who contributed or who were quoted in the "Intelligencer" included: George Dyer, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Christopher Wyvill. Parliamentary reports were typically based on the "Morning Herald". There was much verse, and the publication has been seen as a place where "few poets can refuse themselves the luxury of extended moral comment or political instruction".
Influence.
The "Leeds Mercury" of Edward Baines, and then the "Manchester Guardian" founded by John Edward Taylor, carried on the reformist line of the "Intelligencer". Flower's model for a radical paper was tried again in Cambridge for a few years around 1820, by Weston Hatfield in his "Cambridge and Hertford Independent Press". He had support from, among others, George Pryme.