Warrington Guardian

About Warrington Guardian

The Warrington Guardian is a weekly local newspaper published in Warrington, England, since 1853. Founded and first edited by Alexander Mackie, it is one of the oldest newspapers in the North West and has chronicled more than 170 years of life in a town transformed from a Victorian market and industrial centre into one of the North West's major commercial hubs. Originally published weekly on Saturdays, the paper was bought by Mackie in 1856 and used as the springboard for a whole family of "Guardian" titles across Cheshire. Now owned by Newsquest, the Guardian publishes in print each week and maintains a daily-updated website at warringtonguardian.co.uk, covering Warrington and its surrounding villages with news, sport and community journalism.

Founding by Alexander Mackie

The Warrington Guardian was launched in 1853 by its first editor, Alexander Mackie, and was originally published weekly on Saturdays. Warrington in 1853 was a thriving market town on the Mersey, known for its wire-making, brewing and tanning industries, and the Guardian was founded to serve its commercial and civic life. In 1856 Mackie bought the paper outright, and he used it as the foundation for an ambitious expansion: over the following decade he established a series of sister "Guardian" titles across Cheshire, including the Northwich Guardian in 1861, the Altrincham Guardian in 1862, the Crewe Guardian in 1863 and the Chester Guardian in 1867. By 1859 the Warrington Guardian had achieved a circulation of 2,200, a substantial figure for a provincial weekly of the era, and the Mackie Guardian series became one of the distinctive publishing enterprises of Victorian Cheshire.

170 years in print

In April 2023 the Warrington Guardian celebrated its 170th anniversary, marking the milestone with a special supplement looking back on the biggest stories the paper had covered across nearly two centuries. The anniversary came shortly after the paper won Supplement of the Year at the Regional Press Awards for its retrospective on the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper's editor, Richard Duggan, told the trade press that 170 years after the first edition went to print, the Guardian continued to be at the heart of the town, and that while the day-to-day operation and design of the paper had changed significantly since 1853, its mission remained the same: to be the voice and champion of the people of Warrington. Looking ahead, the anniversary coverage even gazed forward to the year 2193, imagining the paper's third century.

Coverage area

The Warrington Guardian covers the town of Warrington and its surrounding villages in Cheshire and the edges of Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Its heartland is Warrington itself, a large town of more than 200,000 people that became a new town in 1968 and has since grown into one of the North West's major business centres, but its reporting extends to the surrounding communities including Stockton Heath, Lymm, Woolston, Padgate, Great Sankey, Penketh, Culcheth, Grappenhall and Thelwall. The paper reports on Warrington Borough Council, the town's parliamentary constituencies, its courts, schools, hospitals and transport networks, including the two mainline railway stations at Bank Quay and Central and the motorway network that has driven the town's growth as a logistics and distribution hub.

News and sport

The Guardian's news pages carry the full range of local journalism: council and court reporting, crime, planning, education, health and transport, alongside features, opinion, letters and community coverage. Sport is dominated by Warrington Wolves, the professional rugby league club known as the Wire, who play at the Halliwell Jones Stadium and command one of the most passionate followings in the sport; the paper's coverage of the club's Challenge Cup triumphs, including the 2009 victory celebrated by crowds welcoming the team home, has been a highlight of its recent history. Football is represented by Warrington Town and Warrington Rylands, while the town's other sporting clubs, from rugby union to rowing on the Mersey, also feature.

Covering the town's darkest days

The Warrington Guardian's journalism has been tested by some of the darkest events in the town's history. In March 1993 the IRA bombed Warrington, killing two children, three-year-old Johnathan Ball and twelve-year-old Tim Parry, and injuring many others. The Guardian's coverage of the bombing and its aftermath won three British Press Awards, a recognition of the paper's role in reporting a tragedy that scarred the town and in chronicling the community's response, including the Bridge of Peace and the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. The paper's court reporting has also covered landmark cases, including the trial of the parents of Shafilea Ahmed, the Warrington teenager murdered in a so-called honour killing, who were jailed in 2012 after denying the crime for nine years.

Editorial leadership

The Guardian has been shaped by a series of long-serving editors. Nicola Priest joined the paper as a trainee in 1987 and rose to become group editor of the Newsquest-owned Warrington Guardian series, serving ten years in the chair before her retirement in 2014 after 27 years with the company. Her series encompassed 11 titles including the Wirral Globe and St Helens Star. Among the highlights of her editorship were readers raising more than £50,000 for life-changing surgery for baby Bobby Brown and the paper's award-winning coverage of the town's response to the IRA bombing. She was succeeded by a new generation of editors, with Richard Duggan holding the title at the time of the 170th anniversary in 2023. The paper has also been a training ground for journalists who went on to national prominence.

Journalists who made their name

The Warrington Guardian's newsroom has launched the careers of several nationally known figures. John Ray, the BAFTA-winning ITV News correspondent who served as the broadcaster's Africa and Middle East correspondent and was the first Western television journalist to report from inside Syria's borders at the start of the war, began his career on the Guardian. Rebekah Brooks, née Wade, the media executive who became the first woman editor of The Sun and later chief executive of News UK, also worked on the paper early in her career. Their trajectories from a Cheshire weekly to the summit of British journalism testify to the Guardian's long-standing reputation as a training ground for ambitious reporters.

Ownership: Newsquest

The Warrington Guardian is owned by Newsquest Media Group, the UK's second-largest regional publisher and a subsidiary of the American media company Gannett. The paper has been part of Newsquest since at least 2013, sitting within the company's North West operation alongside titles including The Bolton News, the Lancashire Telegraph, the Bury Times and the Oldham Times. Under Newsquest the Guardian has been managed as part of a regional cluster, with shared resources and group editorial leadership, while maintaining its distinct identity as Warrington's paper. The ownership reflects the consolidation of the regional press: the independent Guardian series founded by Alexander Mackie is now part of a group with more than 200 brands across the UK.

Digital presence

The Guardian's digital home is warringtonguardian.co.uk, a daily-updated news website carrying breaking news, live blogs, sport and features for Warrington and the surrounding area. The site has become the first port of call for Warrington news online, with an audience that the paper's editor has described as higher than at any point in its history. Like other Newsquest titles, the website combines free-to-access reporting with advertising and maintains an active social media presence. The digital operation allows the Guardian to cover breaking stories, from major incidents to Warrington Wolves matches, at a pace its weekly print cycle never could, while the print edition remains the paper's flagship weekly package.

The paper today

Today the Warrington Guardian publishes as a weekly newspaper with an audited circulation of 5,977 copies as of 2024, alongside its daily-updated website. It remains the principal paid-for newspaper for Warrington, a town it has served since 1853. From Alexander Mackie's Saturday weekly to the modern multi-platform operation, the Guardian has been the constant witness to Warrington's transformation from Victorian market town to new town to twenty-first-century commercial centre. Its 170th anniversary in 2023 was a celebration of that continuity, and its mission, as its editor put it, remains what it was in 1853: to tell the story of the town, every day, in the most interesting, accurate and up-to-date way.