James Johnstone

James Johnstone was a British newspaper proprietor. He was born in London, the son of a Bankruptcy Court messenger, who he succeeded in 1842. In 1861 he became head of Johnstone, Cooper, Wintle, & Co., managers in chancery, bankrupts' accountants, and public auditors. In 1857 he bought the newspaper interests of Charles Baldwin, proprietor of the ‘Morning Herald’ and the ‘Standard’ for £16,500. The daily circulation of the ‘Standard’ had fallen to 700 and the business was in financial difficulty. With the help of publisher John Maxwell, for a while his partner in the new enterprise, Johnstone re-issued the ‘Standard’ as a morning paper on 29 June 1857, reducing its price to twopence and doubling its size to eight large pages. On the same date he also started a high-priced ‘Evening Herald’ and continued to print the ‘Morning Herald’ as a fourpenny paper. On 4 February 1858 the price of the 'Standard' was reduced to a penny and an evening issue of the paper revived on 11 June 1860. The ‘Evening Herald’ was terminated on 27 May 1865 and the ‘Morning Herald’ on 31 December 1869.