There were no reporters as we would know them today beavering away to find the news for the first edition of the Maidstone Telegraph in 1859.

The paper, started by Mr J. Lurcock who ran a library in Earl Street, was staffed by a printer, George Russell, and a boy, W.R. Brown, who printed the four-page paper with news brought into the library when people had time.

Much of it was a fortnight or more old.

The paper was later taken over by brothers WR and F Masters. In 1890, a libel action landed the pair in jail and they appealed to Mr B. Pratt Boorman, who had started the Kent Examiner and Ashford Chronicle, to help them out.

By 1891 however, as this Kent Messenger picture shows, there was a growing number of staff.

The photograph, used in the Kent Messenger Centenary book, pictured the staff in Brenchley Gardens before a wayzgoose – a traditional event for a master printer to treat his workmen each year around St Bartholomew’s Day (August 24), marking the traditional end of summer and the point at which the season of working by candlelight began.

There are fewer bowler hats and top hats in evidence among the Kent Messenger’s staff today, shown outside the paper’s offices in 6 & 7 Middle Row, Maidstone.