Prospectus to the People. In the Course of a Few Weeks will be Published, The first Number of a New Weekly Newspaper, to be called the Newcastle Press.

Newcastle: Printed by Eneas Mackenzie, 129, Pilgrim Street, n. d. [c. 1832]. A broadside proposal for a new weekly newspaper, 250 x 170 mms., printed on one side only. A very good copy. The man named Eneas Mackenzie who printed this prospectus is Eneas Mackenzie Junior. His eponymous father was Eneas Mackenzie (1777-1832), famous and prolific topographical writer of Newcastle. As Alan Bell explains, this elder Eneas Mackenzie was "a strong radical, a secretary of the Northern Political Union, and the leading founder of the Newcastle Mechanics' Institute in 1824. His publications (all from Newcastle) contain much statistical information aimed at providing grounds for local self-improvement. They include An Historical and Descriptive View of the County of Northumberland (2 vols., 1811, revised as 'historical, topographical and descriptive' to 2 vols. quarto, 1825); A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (2 vols., 1827); and An Historical, Topographical and Descriptive View of the County Palatine of Durham (1834), which had been completed after Mackenzie's death by Metcalf Ross. His other writings included compilations on the history of Egypt (1809), on the life of Napoleon (1816), and on modern geography (1817). More substantially there was An Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive View of the United States of America, and of Upper and Lower Canada (1819, with a second edition the same year); this encouraged emigration by including letters from recent settlers in North America. Mackenzie died of cholera on 21 February 1832 at Newcastle. His son, also named Eneas, started an unsuccessful radical newspaper there in 1832" (Oxford DNB). That last sentence of the Oxford DNB article referencing a "radical newspaper" started in 1832 is definitely the newspaper called the Newcastle Press which is the topic of the prospectus on offer. In Men of Mark 'twixt Tyne and Tweed (1895), Richard Welford explains further, saying that the elder Mackenzie indeed "fell a victim to a visitation of cholera which afflicted Tyneside in 1832," and that he "died on the 21st of February in that year after a few hours' illness, at the age of fifty-four, and was buried in Westgate Cemetery. His eldest son, named after him Eneas, carried on the business for a few years, issuing, among other publications, a newspaper, the Newcastle Press (which lasted from July 20th, 1832, to October 4th, 1834), and ultimately emigrating to Australia, where he died. One of the daughters, marrying Mr. Furniss, became the mother of Harry Furniss, the caricaturist" (p. 118). The proposal begins: "Englishmen! We are in the midst of a great political crisis, upon the fortunate or unhappy termination of which it depends, whether the People of England shall be FREE, or the SLAVES of a tyrannical oligarchy. Ireland is already delivered over to military dominion, and an armed police has already been established in England. The Intentions then of our present rulers are plain. It is contemplated to establish upon the ruins of constitutional freedom a government of force." Mackenzie continues in this vein, stating that "Our motto is, LIBERTY AND EQUALITY, fear[ing] the eye, and dread[ing] the tongue of no man. We wish solely to serve the people." The copy on offer of this prospectus is the only copy I know of. It seems unrecorded bibliographically. No copies appear to be listed in the British Library online catalogue, COPAC, or WorldCat. Uncommon [sic].

PROSPECTUS. NEWCASTLE PRESS - Prospectus to the People. In the Course of a Few Weeks will be Published, The first Number of a New Weekly Newspaper, to be called the Newcastle Press.