The Bournemouth Daily Echo was established in 1900, with its first issue published on 20 August 1900. The local newspaper covers southeast Dorset, which includes such towns as Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole. The newspaper is still printed today, with new issues published Monday through Saturday.

The newspaper is known locally as the Daily Echo and the Bournemouth Echo. Historically, the paper was of local importance as the ‘only local daily paper for Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, Dorchester, Wimborne, Weymouth, and neighbouring places’. It covered news of local and national significance: situations vacant and wanted, letters from London, and local events and tragedies (e.g. fatalities, accidents, outbreaks of smallpox, etc.). If you have family roots in Bournemouth, this local coverage becomes all the more insightful.

Bournemouth is home to three Grade I listed churches. The local newspaper is a valuable source for any historian interested in the development of the town and its structures of importance. For example, St Peter’s Church, the first of the Grade I churches to be built, is mentioned numerous times in the paper. On 26 April 1905, an article was printed regarding the plans for a new side chapel for St Peter’s. The reasoning for such an addition was also printed: ‘The Vicar observed it was a great strain on the clergy to conduct some of the week day services when there was only a small and scattered congregation present, and this would be avoided by the provision of a side chapel’. This statement is valuable to both the local historian and genealogist.