Bringing you the news for 300 years

Charles Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities. Queen Victoria had been on the throne for 22 years. And the Maidstone Telegraph, forerunner of the Kent Messenger, was born.

It was 1859. A loaf of bread was 10 pence (4p). A bottle of gin was 3 shillings (15p). And Maidstone's new paper cost one penny.

The launch of the paper signified the beginning of the Kent Messenger Group, the county's premier media group. Today, almost 150 years later, the company continues to publish weekly newspapers, supplements and magazines but also runs websites, radio stations and other media-related businesses.

In fact, because the KM became so deeply rooted in Kent, parts of the county were dubbed "KM Country" - most appropriate for a county that in 1421 was the birthplace of William Caxton, the father of printing!

One of the Group's titles can trace it's history back well beyond Queen Victoria - almost 300 years to 1717. That was when the Kentish Post, which became the Kentish Gazette, first rolled off the press in Canterbury.

The Gazette series of newspapers was taken over by the KM in 1980, one of numerous mergers and acquisitions which date back to 1890. But throughout the years of expansion, huge competition and massive technological change the KM has remained in the ownership of one family.

The Boorman Family

Barham Pratt Boorman, great-grandfather of the present chairman, was the youngest member of a family who ran a general store in Tenterden. He was interested in newspapers and in 1884 had launched the Kent Examiner and Ashford Chronicle.

By then the Maidstone Telegraph had become the Kent Messenger and Maidstone Telegraph and had editions in Dartford and Sevenoaks as well as Maidstone. The papers were printed on a steam driven press in Station Road, Maidstone.

But in 1890 the owners were flung into jail after a series of costly libel actions. They appealed to Mr Boorman for help. He raised funds to get them out of jail and then bought the Kent Messenger from the cash-strapped brothers.

Over the next 40 years, "BP" spearheaded radical technological change and company expansion. Linotype machines were installed and revolutionised compositing by automatically setting type that had been done by hand. New editions were published and offices opened. Mr Boorman died in 1928 after 40 years at the helm. His son Henry Roy Pratt Boorman, grandfather of the present chairman, took over.

Roy's son Edwin joined his father in the business in 1959. He was about to emigrate to Canada to set up his own printing business when the KM Group was caught up in a national printing dispute.

As a strike loomed, Edwin offered his help to continue publication during the crisis, which his father accepted. After that Edwin stayed with the family business and steered the company through decades of growth as managing director and, subsequently, chairman.

In January 2006 Edwin Boorman retired as chairman after 19 years and became president of the company.

The chair was taken by his daughter, Geraldine Allinson, the great-granddaughter of the founder. Geraldine, who worked for some of the UK's major regional newspaper groups before joining the KM Group in 1993 as development manager, said: "I would hope that if my great-grandfather could look at everything the company has achieved since his sudden death in 1928 he would congratulate his son and grandson for leading the company through thick and thin and into a future he could not have dreamed of."