Cherwell (newspaper)

''Cherwell'' is a weekly student newspaper published entirely by students of Oxford University. Founded in 1920 and named after a local river, ''Cherwell'' is a subsidiary of independent student publishing house Oxford Student Publications Ltd. Receiving no university funding, the newspaper is one of the oldest student publications in the UK.

History

''Cherwell'' was conceived by two Balliol College students, Cecil Binney and George Adolphus Edinger, on a ferry from Dover to Ostend during the summer vacation of 1920 while the students were travelling to Vienna to do relief work for the Save the Children charity. Edinger recalls the early newspaper having a radical voice: "We were feeling for a new Oxford …. We were anti-convention, anti-Pre War values, pro-feminist. We did not mind shocking and we often did." The publication was independent of the University of Oxford and it was entirely financed, staffed, and owned by students.

Early editions combine this seriousness with whimsy and parochialism. The first editorial gives the newspaper's purpose as being "to exclude all outside influence and interference from our University. Oxford for the Oxonians".

''Cherwell'' was the only newspaper printed in Britain during the UK General Strike of 1926, other than the '' British Gazette'' and the '' British Worker'', during which time it was produced at the offices of the '' Daily Mail'' in London.

Throughout the 1920s ''Cherwell'' had a strong literary focus, and a policy of not editing literary contributions. Undergraduate contributors included Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, John Betjeman, L. P. Hartley, Cecil Day-Lewis and W. H. Auden.

The newspaper's focus broadened over the coming decades until January 1953, when the owners of the paper decided to turn it into a university newspaper. In 1946 ''Cherwell'' was briefly banned by the university for distributing a survey on the sex lives of undergraduates, and in 1954 ran a series of pin-up photographs entitled "Girls of the Year". In 1970 then-editor Peter Stothard published a current Oxford theatre poster featuring a naked female, possibly a first for a British newspaper. Under his editorship ''Cherwell'' also published a backless photo of Gully Wells, considered very daring for the time. Both editions caused much comment. In 1973 the paper became a 'cause celebre' in the national papers when the ''Cherwell'' published a photo of general editor David Soskin with a topless model. This resulted in a personal fine by the proctors for David Soskin.

In 1964, the newspaper's longest-running feature was created, the "John Evelyn" gossip column, and it has run almost uninterrupted since then; its founding editors were Christopher Meakin and Michael Morris. Meakin then moved over to become editor of ''Isis'' the following term, in days when the parallel undergraduate magazine (although not then linked with ''Cherwell'') also appeared weekly. Over the decades, many famous people have been the subject of "John Evelyn"s wry and faux-condescending style, among them future Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, politician Jonathan Aitken, and actor Imogen Stubbs. In 1981, Hugh Grant is described as "New College's answer to Brooke Shields", and his unsuccessful attempts to infiltrate a ball with his date are reported. ''Cherwell''s Editor in Michaelmas Term 1964 had been Patrick Marnham, who on leaving Oxford became a staff journalist on '' Private Eye'', the British satirical magazine, and was author of the standard reference book on the history of the magazine which Marnham wrote as its 21st birthday celebration in 1982. The editor for the following Hilary Term 1965 was Martin Linton, who became the Labour member of parliament for Battersea. Linton's news editor on Cherwell, Sarah Boyd-Carpenter, is better known today as Baroness Hogg.

In the mid-1970s ''Cherwell'' survived one of its periodic financial crises, and politically the paper campaigned against Oxford University's investments in apartheid-era South Africa.

''Cherwell'' and the English language

The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' lists the terms 'sherry party' and 'Marxism' (as pertaining to the Marx Brothers) as having been coined in ''Cherwell''. Additions from recent decades are lacking probably because ''Cherwell'' is only sporadically lodged at copyright libraries, and because it is not included in electronic text search systems such as LexisNexis. Xerox University Microfilms has micro-fiche copies of the paper for some years, especially the 1970s.

Notable ''Cherwell'' contributors

*Harold Acton
*Jeffrey Archer (Sports columnist, Member of Parliament, novelist, House of Lords)
*W. H. Auden
* Arthur David Beaty (editor; British writer, pilot and psychologist)
* John Betjeman
*H. S. Bhabra (arts editor; author and broadcaster)
* Sarah Boyd-Carpenter (editor, journalist on ''The Economist''; became Baroness Hogg)
*Emma Brockes (editor; journalist on ''The Guardian'')
*John Brooke-Little (editor, founder of the Heraldry Society)
*Nick Cohen ("John Evelyn"; journalist)
*Susan Cooper (editor; author of children's books), first woman to edit newspaper
*Alex Cox (cartoonist, film director)
* Michael Crick (editor; BBC ''Newsnight'' and ''Channel 4 News'' reporter and biographer)
* Howard Davies (writer; economist, CBI director-general; deputy governor Bank of England, director, London School of Economics)
*Evan Davis (journalist BBC Radio 4 ''Today'' presenter)
* Cecil Day-Lewis
* David English (editor; editor of the '' Daily Mail'')
*Hadley Freeman (editor, journalist and author)
*Graham Greene
* Sarah Hargreaves (editor; head of Editorial Standards and Training at BBC Television)
* L. P. Hartley
*Rupert Murdoch (advertising; global newspaper proprietor)
*Michael Heseltine (advertising; publisher, Member of Parliament and deputy prime minister)
*Rony Robinson (editor; writer, playwright and Broadcaster, anchor of ''BBC Radio Sheffield''
*Roger Laughton (editor) BBC producer '' Great Railway Journeys of the World'' so devising Michael Palin's career as a television traveller; senior BBC executive; chief executive of Meridian Television chair of media school at Bournemouth University)
*Tim Heald (journalist; devised ''Sixth Form Opinion'' while still at Sherborne) ''Daily Mail'', ''The Sunday Telegraph'', author and novelist; authorised royal biographer Princess Margaret, Duke of Edinburgh)
*Edward Heath
*Peter Preston (editor; editor-in-chief of ''The Guardian'')
*Nicholas Lloyd (editor; editor of the '' Daily Express'')
*Patrick Marnham (editor; chief reporter on and historian of '' Private Eye''; expert on the "Goldenballs" criminal libel case; journalist on ''Punch''
*Jan Morris, historian and travel writer
* Martin Linton (editor, journalist on ''The Guardian'', Member of Parliament for Battersea)
* Simon Jenkins (Oxford Union correspondent; editor of ''The Times'')
*Peter Mandelson (journalist, political contributor; Member of Parliament, peer)
* John Quelch (dean, University of Miami School of Business)
*Peter Sissons (sports editor, 1963; BBC
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