Enter Edward Baldwin

For the new proprietor of The Standard, Edward Baldwin, it was a time to further expand the business, and his first task upon his father’s retirement was to develop The Morning Herald, which he had recently purchased from the Thwaites family. Ever since the eighteenth century, when the Revd Henry Bate (he later changed his surname to Dudley) had been editor, the paper had led a lively existence: in 1786 William Pitt, the Prime Minister, had sued The Herald for libel, the paper having charged him with gambling with public funds. Pitt demanded £10,000 damages, but the jury awarded only £150.1 Despite the notoriety from the libel suit, the circulation did not exceed 1,200 copies — to a large extent it was the revenue from its advertisements which enabled the paper to exist precariously until 1820.