History of another newspaper from Andover

Lloyd’s bank can be seen in the background. All these buildings were soon to be demolished in order to make way for the brand-new shopping complex, then generally known as the Town Centre.

The building immediately to the right were the offices of Standard Press. Between the wars it had housed Arthur William Sainsbury’s mineral water factory with the Standard Press at the rear of 19 High Street (Browne and Gradidge’s), run by master printer William John Sainsbury.

There seems to have been no obvious family relationship between the two men, despite having the same surname.

William was born near Marlborough and had worked in several different areas as a printer before coming to Andover, whereas Arthur was born into the family of Andover builders who flourished locally between 1860 and 1940. Mineral waters generally seem to have fallen out of fashion during the 1930s and the printing works moved into the premises seen here around 1939.

The business name Standard Press was then relatively new, but an advertisement of that period claimed the Standard Press had already been established over 80 years.

It seems a wild exaggeration but there was actually a link that led back into the mid-Victorian era.

The Andover Standard and North Hants Chronicle Printing and Publishing Co was from where the much shorter Standard Press originates.

One Frederick J J Browne had started a rival newspaper to the Andover Advertiser in 1858 and 20 years later had set up and become the senior partner to his son-in-law (William Gradidge) in the firm of Browne and Gradidge whose premises were at 19 High Street.

Browne’s newspaper survived most of the 19th century but was subject to a succession of name changes and by the 1880s was ultimately called The Andover Standard, with his printing company assuming the full title of the newspaper.

The newspaper offices were further down the street at No 7 but the newspaper was printed at works to the rear of Browne and Gradidge.

A photograph in Cyril Berry’s Old Andover shows the shop with the words Standard Printing Co above the shop name.

As Browne and Gradidge were once also involved with the production of mineral water, the West Street premises may originally have been theirs.

Whether the firm had leased the factory to Arthur Sainsbury in the 1920s after ceasing to be interested in mineral water is not known but mineral water does not seem to be part of the firm’s advertising after World War I.

Brown was a real innovator and seems to have had a restless personality – he also started the town’s first waterworks – and after his death in 1896 some of his interests were no doubt curtailed, though Browne and Gradidge remained chemists, photographers and printers, the latter to customer order, until the 1950s.

As a rather neat postscript, over 70 years after Browne’s death and when West Street had been demolished, the Standard Press moved to South Street under Cyril Berry who had quit his job as Andover Advertiser editor to concentrate on the promotion of amateur winemaking.

As well as several books on the hobby he also wrote a monthly magazine called the Amateur Winemaker, all produced by Standard Press (Andover) Ltd, whose origin was in the Andover Standard newspaper, arch-rival to the Advertiser, the paper for which he was once editor.