30th June 1890

The Jersey Evening Post is founded

The Evening Post was founded by HP Butterworth, but was soon acquired by its printer, Walter Guiton. Guiton became its editor, and the Guiton family name has been associated with the paper ever since.

The Evening Post’s first edition, which cost half a penny, was quite different to the modern newspaper. It was broadsheet rather than a tabloid, carried only adverts rather than news on its front page (as was common at the time) and hadn’t yet added the “Jersey” prefix to its name, which only appeared in 1967.

A time-consuming process

The paper was printed on a flatbed press, which would have been more time-consuming to work with than the rotary press that replaced it in the mid-1920s. Although originally produced in a four-storied building at the corners of Charles and Bath Street in St Helier, the newspaper’s offices moved out of the centre of town in the 1970s.

As one of two leading local newspapers on the island (the other being the Morning News), and thus a vital means of communication for the German authorities, the Evening Post remained in production throughout the occupation. However, its contents were supervised by the occupying forces, and it was often required to publish notices advertising rules and regulations introduced by the Nazis, notices of death sentences, and propaganda. It was also required to facilitate production of the Deutsche Inselzeitung, a German-language publication for the occupying forces.

In the late 1990s, the Guiton Group, which had grown out of WE Guiton and Co Ltd, itself established in 1957, acquired the Guernsey Evening Press and Star, which it held until 2019 when it sold it to Guernsey investors.