It will help make the utmost use of every inch of paper
The Observer replaced adverts on the front page with news on Sunday 1 November 1942. Newsprint rationing was in force throughout the war and the size of the paper was limited to eight pages.
Ivor Brown had become the Observer’s editor in February 1942 on the understanding that David Astor, son of Waldorf Astor who owned the paper, would eventually take over.
Astor, a captain in the Royal Marines based in operations HQ in Whitehall, began modernising the paper and overseeing operations in his spare time. One of his first actions was to take adverts off the front page in November 1942 and replace them with news.
The front-page editor’s column of the new look front page states “it will help make the utmost use of every inch of paper at a time when the raw material on journalism has to be so severely rationed”. The column also signals the paper’s independence. “The Observer is not a party paper. It is tied to no group, no sect, no interest”.
Stories covered on front page include: El Alamein campaign, daylight bombing in Canterbury, siege of Stalingrad, war in the Pacific, US midterm elections, UK visit by Eleanor Roosevelt and a miners conference with Winston Churchill.
Observer front page with adverts 25 October 1942
Observer front page with news 1 November 1942
Sales of the Observer rose from 241,613 in 1942 to 359,912 in 1948 when David Astor officially became editor.
The Manchester Guardian was to remove adverts from the front page in September 1952.
Observer foreign news service
Observer production schedules in the 1940’s
Researching the history of the Observer
Observer timeline
Paper rationing in the second world war
Guardian front page from adverts to news