The Daventry Express

About The Daventry Express

The Daventry Express is a local weekly newspaper serving Daventry and the surrounding villages of western Northamptonshire, England. Founded in 1869 by the brothers Thomas and John William Barrett, it has chronicled the life of its market town for more than 150 years — with one remarkable interruption, when wartime paper shortages forced its suspension in 1940, before it was revived in 1948. Published every Thursday in tabloid format, the Express remains the definitive record of Daventry's civic life, from district council debates to the fortunes of the town's sports clubs. It is published by National World — now being renamed Iconic Media — and its journalism appears online at https://www.daventryexpress.co.uk.

Founding: The Barrett Brothers, 1869

The Daventry Express was first published in 1869 on Saturdays by Thomas and John William Barrett, printers who saw an opportunity in Daventry's growing importance as a market town. The 1860s were a boom time for the provincial press: the abolition of paper duty in 1861 had slashed production costs, and towns across England were acquiring newspapers of their own. The Barretts' new paper served a Daventry that was still defined by its coaching heritage — the town stood on the major routes between London, Birmingham, and the North — and by the boot and shoe industry that employed many of its people. The Express quickly became the town's paper of record, its columns carrying the advertisements of local tradesmen alongside reports of the markets, the magistrates, and the parish affairs that governed Victorian town life.

The Victorian and Edwardian Years

Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Express documented Daventry's evolution from a coaching town into a modern market centre. Its reporters covered the coming of the railways, the rise and fall of local industries, and the great national dramas — the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the constitutional crises of the Edwardian era — as they were experienced in a Northamptonshire town. The paper's offices on the High Street became a fixture of town life, and its weekly rhythm — the Saturday edition eagerly awaited, read, and debated — structured the civic week. Like all local papers of the era, the Express was as much a social institution as a business: the place where engagements were announced, businesses advertised, and reputations were made and unmade.

The Wartime Suspension, 1940

The Express's long run was interrupted by the Second World War. In 1940, amid acute national paper shortages and the exigencies of the wartime economy, publication of the Daventry Express was discontinued. The suspension was a common fate for smaller papers in wartime Britain, as newsprint was rationed and staff were called up for military service. For eight years, Daventry was without the newspaper that had served it since 1869 — a gap in the town's recorded memory that makes the surviving pre-war editions all the more precious to historians. The paper's archive from these years, held on microfilm in Northamptonshire's libraries, ends abruptly, resuming only when the Express returned.

Revival: The Weekly Express Returns, 1948

In 1948, as Britain rebuilt in the aftermath of war, the Daventry Express was revived under the title the Daventry and District Weekly Express. The relaunch captured the optimism of the post-war years: Daventry, like towns across the country, was looking to the future, and it needed its newspaper back. The revived paper covered the creation of the welfare state, the nationalisation of industries, and the local elections that shaped the new Britain, all through the lens of a Northamptonshire market town. The title was shortened to the Daventry Weekly Express in 1966, and shortened again to the Daventry Express in 1990 — the name under which it publishes today, completing a journey from Victorian Saturday paper to modern Thursday weekly.

The Modern Express: A Thursday Tabloid

Today the Daventry Express is a weekly tabloid newspaper, published every Thursday and sold in newsagents across Daventry and the surrounding villages. Its pages follow the enduring formula of the British local weekly: lead news drawn from the district council, the police, and the courts; community pages celebrating schools, charities, and volunteers; sports coverage following the town's football, rugby, and cricket clubs; and the family announcements that remain among the most-read content in any local paper. The Express's journalists are tasked with holding local power to account — planning decisions, road schemes, and the spending of public money all come under the paper's scrutiny — while also serving as the town's noticeboard and cheerleader.

Ownership: Johnston Press to National World

The Express's modern corporate history mirrors that of much of Britain's regional press. For many years it was part of Johnston Press, the Edinburgh-based group that grew into one of the country's largest local publishers, and it was produced as part of the company's Northamptonshire Newspapers operation alongside the Northampton Chronicle & Echo. When Johnston Press collapsed in 2018, its titles were acquired by JPIMedia, which was in turn bought by National World in 2021 for just over ten million pounds and rebranded under the National World name in 2022. In May 2025, National World was acquired by Media Concierge, the company owned by Malcolm Denmark, in a sixty-five-million-pound deal that took the group private; Denmark announced that the company would be renamed Iconic Media. The Express has thus been carried through successive waves of industry consolidation while continuing to serve its town.

Coverage Area: Daventry and Its Villages

The Express's patch centres on Daventry, a market town of around twenty-five thousand people, and extends across the villages of the former Daventry district in western Northamptonshire — communities like Braunston, Barby, Kilsby, Welton, and Badby, scattered across the rolling countryside between Rugby, Northampton, and Leamington Spa. This is a district shaped by its geography: the Grand Union Canal, the historic coaching routes, and in modern times the vast Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal, one of the UK's largest logistics hubs. The paper covers the West Northamptonshire Council decisions that affect the area, the parish councils that govern the villages, and the planning battles that accompany growth in one of England's fastest-developing corridors.

Editorial Character and Community Role

The Daventry Express has always been defined by its closeness to its readers. Its offices at 63 High Street, Daventry, place it at the physical heart of the town it serves, and its reporters are expected to be visible and accessible — at council meetings, at school fetes, on the touchlines of local sports grounds. The paper's campaigns have reflected the concerns of its community, from road safety to the protection of local services, and its pages give a platform to the voluntary groups, charities, and sports clubs that constitute the town's civic life. In an era when much local news has migrated to social media groups of variable reliability, the Express offers something those platforms cannot: professionally reported, accountable journalism with a named editor and a published corrections policy.

Digital Presence

The Express's digital home is daventryexpress.co.uk, where its journalism appears alongside that of its National World sister titles. The website carries breaking news between print editions, photo galleries, and the interactive features of modern local news sites, extending the paper's reach to former residents, commuters, and readers who have moved online. The title also maintains a social media presence, amplifying its stories and engaging with readers between editions. Like its print edition, the website is rooted in Daventry: its most-read stories are overwhelmingly local, a reminder that for all the global reach of the internet, readers still care most about what is happening on their own street.

How to Read The Daventry Express

The Daventry Express is published in print each Thursday and is available from newsagents across Daventry and the surrounding villages of western Northamptonshire. Its latest news, sport, and community stories can be found online at https://www.daventryexpress.co.uk. For a newspaper first published in 1869, suspended by war, revived in peace, and carried through the digital revolution, the Express's continued publication is a tribute to a simple truth its founders understood: that a town like Daventry will always need, and always sustain, a newspaper of its own.