About your Newspaper

Harrow’s favorite local newspaper the Harrow Observer has documented every kind of event over the years, from rail crashes to royal visits, court cases to council estates.

The Harrow Observer began life as the four-page, two pence The Harrow Monthly Gazette and General Advertiser.

It first hit newsstands on April 1,1855, fulfilling the dream of local estate agent and civic leader William Winkley Junior, who published the paper from a small shop in High Street, Harrow on the Hill.

By the 1880s, the publication had grown into a broadsheet and the cover price had risen by half a penny.

The Gazette lost its monopoly in April 1895 when non-conformist Robert A Smith launched the alternative Wealdstone, Harrow and Wembley Observer.

In 1921, Sir Oswald Mosley, then MP for Harrow, took over as editor of the Harrow Observer and under his command the two rivals merged.

After several changes of owner, the newspaper came into the hands of Westminster Press, under whose tenure a 20-page midweek edition was published in 1967.

Our sister free paper, the Leader series, came into existence in 1983 and three years later the Harrow Observer switched from a broadsheet to tabloid format.

Unfortunately, a large swathe of the photographic negatives archive was destroyed in a fire in 1992 and dark room developing became extinct when digital photography was introduced in 1998.

Trinity Mirror, the UK’s largest publisher, acquired the title in 2002 after a takeover and the editorial team now work from their sixth home in Lyon Road, Harrow.

The latest development for the Harrow Observer is the launch of this our 24-hour website www.harrowobserver.co.uk which consists of a newspaper companion site with local news and a series of hyperlocal sites including Pinner & Hatch End, Stanmore, Wembley and South Harrow & Rayners Lane.