Our history 
                              

When we started 128 years ago the paper was just four pages long and cost a ha’penny. Since then The Observer has been with the people of Crawley every step of the way, watching and reporting on the town’s change from a sleepy village to the thriving economic  centre it is now. 

  The Observer was launched on March 23, 1881, as  The  Simmins’s Weekly Advertiser serving Crawley, Ifield, Horley, Handcross and Worth.

Name changes over the years saw the paper become the The Sussex and Surrey Courier, The Crawley and District Observer, The New Crawley Observer and finally the Crawley Observer.

In 2001 the paper went online for the first time as www.crawleytoday.co.uk - only changing in April 2007 to www.crawleyobserver.co.uk.

The first edition of the newspaper is unrecognisable from today. It was a fourpage tabloid, most of which was taken up with advertisements, with prominent features for land sales handled by founder George Simmins.

The front page of the first issue carried a staid article describing how Crawley had been involved in a building boom – though with a population of just 451, it was still dwarfed by Ifield (population 2,043).

On the back page were stories from Horsham Magistrates’ Court and a story from news agency Reuters about the end of the Boer War. It also carried a report of Horley’s search for a site for the new railway station.

Advertised homes included a four-bedroom house for £500. The paper was so successful that from the fifth issue onwards it became a broadsheet, still four pages and now costing one penny.

As the paper increased in popularity, London clubs and City society events began being featured – more evidence that Crawley was a ‘dormitory’ town for well-to-do City gents.

Just over a year after The Simmins’s Weekly Advertiser was born the paper’s name was changed to The Sussex and Surrey Courier. The paper would retain that name until the birth of the new town in 1946.

In July 1946 the newspaper announced it was changing it’s name to the Crawley and District Observer – although it stressed that in all other respects it would be ‘unaltered’.

In a front page blurb it says: “It is felt that this change will not only avoid confusion caused by two newspapers with similarity of title circulating in the same area, but that the localised title is more appropriate and will improve popularity with readers.”

Lead story on that edition was the development of a new satellite town planned for Three Bridges.

Horsham Rural Council representative Ernest Stanford said the plan was ‘no far off dream’ and that the area would have an ultimate population of 50,000.

Other stories making the front page in 1946 were the marriage of Eileen Ribbands of Pound Hill and Henry Winter of Weybridge and also the electrocution of an otter which had strayed onto a railway line near Crawley Station. The paper was published weekly on a Friday and cost 3d.

In the mid 1950s the paper was bought by FJ Parsons and it’s offices moved to a former newsagents in the High Street - what is now the restaurant Taj Mahal.

The newspaper group, which also included the East Grinstead Observer and other titles, changed hands again in 1973 when it was bought by Morgan Grampion.

The company lasted three years before the papers were sold again, this time to Westminster Press.

In 1980 the Crawley and District Observer parted company with its East Grinstead namesake and in January 1981 the paper was re-launched, this time as The New Crawley Observer.

The publication date was moved from Friday to Thursday and it cost the reader 12p. By then the paper had increased to 52 pages, making it ‘the top value in town’.

Editor Allan Prosser created a bright and breezy tabloid and favoured the sort of stories that would still make the news pages today.

The property section had also expanded since the 1940s, with a threebedroom house in Three Bridges selling for £46k.

But the ‘new’ title lasted just two years before the paper’s name was changed again – this time to the Crawley Observer.

The paper was given a further facelift and new columns were launched, including the Observer Diary which was written anonymously by ‘The Townsmen’. It cast a sceptical eye over the actions of Crawley’s movers and shakers.

The paper also moved from its address in High Street, to offices in The Boulevard – where we have stayed ever since.

The 1980s were a period of rapid change for the Observer, with several owners, editors and styles coming and going. The publishing date moved again – this time to Wednesday, and it successfully beat off a series of rivals to retain its position at the heart of the community.

In the early 90s the paper was bought by current owners, Johnston Press.
And in 2001 the online version of the newspaper was launched at www.crawleytoday.co.uk  - enabling us to share breaking news with our readers for the first time.

In September 2006 current editor Lesley Hixon and her team gave the paper its current design and in April 2007 www.crawleyobserver.co.uk was launched.

The new website is designed to be cleaner, smarter and easier to navigate. It is packed full of new features, local information and interactive options. So let us know what you think. Simply click here and have your say.