London Gazette

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The London Gazette , front page from Monday 3–10 September 1666, reporting on the Great Fire of London. (Click image to enlarge and read).

The London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the UK, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published. 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. It is not a conventional newspaper offering general news coverage, and does not have a large circulation.

Other official newspapers of the UK government are the Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes, which, apart from reproducing certain materials of nationwide interest published in the London Gazette, also contain publications specific to Scotland and Northern Ireland, respectively.

In turn, the London Gazette not only carries notices of UK-wide interest, but also those relating specifically to entities or people in England. However, certain notices that are only of specific interest to Scotland or Northern Ireland are also required to be published in the London Gazette.

[edit] Today

In 2007 the London Gazette is still published each weekday, except for 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
• Royal Proclamations and other Declarations

Her Majesty's Stationery Office is currently digitising these records and the years 1752–1998 are currently available online.^[1][2]

The official Gazettes are published by The Stationery Office.

[edit] History

The London Gazette, dated 14-17 May 1705 detailing the return of John Leake from Gibraltar after the Battle of Cabrita point.

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 (labeled No. 24) being published on 5 February 1666. 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.

[edit] Traditions

In time of war, dispatches from the various conflicts are published in the London Gazette. 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 1722 to the lavishly-spending faux-genteel farmers of 1822^[3]

Man to the plough;

Wife to the cow;

Girl to the yarn;

Boy to the barn;

And your rent will be netted.

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.

[edit] Colonial Gazettes

There are equivalent Government Gazettes for the following current/former colonies or protectorates. They are available at the National Archives.

[edit] See also

• Belfast Gazette in Northern Ireland
• Dublin Gazette in Ireland
• Edinburgh Gazette in Scotland
• Official Journal of the European Union
• Boletín Oficial del Estado in Spain
• Gazzetta Ufficiale in Italy
• Journal Officiel de la République Française
• The Royal Gazette (Thailand)
• History of British newspapers

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes
• TSO (The Stationery Office)