Talk:Hicky's Bengal Gazette

Hickey vs. Hicky

This page should reflect that James Augustus Hicky spelled his name without an 'e' attached, unlike the memoirist, William Hickey. The use of 'e' in James Hicky's name is pure historical fiction. All editions of his gazette was titled "Hicky's Bengal Gazette." He signed all of his communication within the Gazette as J. A. Hicky. Books written on Hicky all reflect this spelling of name, including H. E. Busteed's Calcutta Past and Present, Mukhopadhyay's Hicky's Bengal Gazette: Contemporary Life and Events and Nair's Hicky and his Gazette. Others during Hicky's time referred to Hicky without the 'e,' including court documents from his libel trail against Governor-General Warren Hastings and the Reverend John Kiernander. This wikipedia page should change to reflect this consistent spelling.

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Huerndy, 2011, October 4

Gaol vs. Jail

Which is correct, or is it both? I am unsure what the standard is, given that both are correct depending on the dialect of English one is speaking.

Hickey's Bengal Gazette was an English newspaper published from Kolkata (then Calcutta), India. It was the first major newspaper in India, started in 1780. It was published for two years.

Hicky's Bengal Gazette Founded by James Augustus Hicky, a highly eccentric Irishman who had previously spent two years in Jail for debt. Later on, Hicky was jailed because he earned the wrath of the Governor-General Lord Warren Hastings. He would mostly write articles criticising the activities of Lady Hastings, Lord Hastings' wife. Hicky continued to write from jail until his movable types were seized from him under Lord Hasting's orders. Hicky's Bengal Gazette or the Calcutta General Advertiser was the first English-language newspaper, and indeed the first printed newspaper, to be published in the Indian sub-continent. The newspaper soon became very famous not only among the British soldiers posted in India at that time but also inspired the Indians to write newspapers of their own.

It was a weekly newspaper, and was founded on, in Calcutta, the capital of British India. The paper ceased publication on March 23, 1782. The memoirist William Hickey (who, confusingly, was not in fact related to the paper's founder) describes its establishment shortly after he had succeeded (in his capacity as an attorney-at-law) in having James Hicky released from debtor's gaol:

"At the time I first saw Hicky he had been about seven years in India. During his confinement he met with a treatise upon printing, from which he collected sufficient information to commence [as a] printer, there never having been a press in Calcutta....it occurred to Hicky that great benefit might arise from setting on foot a public newspaper, nothing of that kind ever having appeared. Upon his types &c., therefore reaching him, he issued proposals for printing a weekly paper, which, meeting with extraordinary encouragement, he speedily issued his first work. As a novelty every person read it, and was delighted. Possessing a fund of low wit, his paper abounded with proof of that talent. He had also a happy knack at applying appropriate nicknames and relating satirical anecdotes".[1]

Hicky benefited little from the paper, as William Hickey further tells us that he allowed it "to become the channel of personal invective, and the most scurrilous abuse of individuals of all ranks, high and low, rich and poor, many were attacked in the most wanton and cruel manner.....His utter ruin was the consequence".[2]

First newspaper in Asia?

Was this really the first newspaper in Asia? Some sources do claim so, while others list newspapers from Korea, Japan and China that have been published way before the Hicky's Bengal Gazette, sometimes hundreds of years. --188.22.148.58 (talk) 03:24, 21 June 2022 (UTC)