The Taunton Courier was founded in 1808 by John William Marriott. Marriott was a friend of London radical James Henry Leigh Hunt, who, together with his brother John, established the very popular Examiner, also in 1808. The Hunts regularly fell foul of the law with various prosecutions for seditious libel, fines and imprisonment in 1813 for libelling the Prince Regent.
Marriott fashioned the Taunton Courier very much in the style of the Examiner, as an independent, liberal paper with no political allegiance to any party, but appealing to the strong liberal tradition in the West Country and it circulated widely throughout the area.
In 1936 the Taunton Courier was incorporated into the Somerset County Herald to become the Somerset County Herald and Taunton Courier. It was discontinued in 1964.
For this newspaper, we have the following titles in, or planned for, our digital archive:
- 1810–94 The Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, for Somerset, Wilts, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall
- 1881–1900 Taunton Courier
- 1898–1936 Taunton Courier, Bristol and Exeter Journal and Western Advertiser
- 1936–64 Somerset County Herald and Taunton Courier
