John Walter

John Walter (1 January 1738 – 17 November 1812) was an English newspaper publisher and founder of The Times newspaper, which he launched on 1 January 1785 as The Daily Universal Register. He was born in London and educated at Merchant Taylors' School, then located in London. Biography Walter was engaged in a prosperous business as a coal merchant from the death of his father Richard Walter (about 1755/6) until 1781. Walter played a leading part in establishing the Coal Exchange in London; but shortly after 1781, when he began to occupy himself solely as an underwriter and became a member of Lloyd's, he over-speculated and failed. In 1782, he bought from one Henry Johnson a patent for a new method of printing from logotypes (i.e. founts of words or portions of words, instead of letters), and made some improvements to it. In 1784 he acquired an old printing office in Blackfriars, which formed the nucleus of the Printing-house Square of a later date, and established there his Logographic Office. At first Walter only undertook the printing of books, but on 1 January 1785 he started a small newspaper called The Daily Universal Register, which on reaching its 940th number on 1 January 1788 was renamed The Times.