Fleet Street became known to many as the “river of ink.” In 1702, Elizabeth Mallet produced London’s first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, at her estate overlooking the bank of Fleet River in London. By the 1730s, The Daily Courant was producing daily, tri-weekly, and weekly issues. As a result of the increase in publications, more people from all social levels found it a valuable source of entertainment. Some even believe that London’s increase in literacy rates was influenced by the increased readership of Fleet Street’s publications. Growth continued, by 1850, around the time of David Copperfield, there were multiple presses, most commonly known: The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, and The Times. In 1846, Charles Dickens created his own publication on Fleet Street entitled The Daily News. In Dickens’s Dictionary of London, written in 1879, Dickens wrote, “Fleet-street may almost be called the nursing mother of English literature. Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Raleigh, Dryden, Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, and countless names, brilliant even in brilliant times, are associated with Fleet-street.”
Today, Fleet Street is no longer revered as the British epicenter of journalism. Its appeal to the industry faded in the late 1980s when major presses relocated to other parts of England. Fleet Street’s downward trajectory began in 1986 when Rupert Murdoch moved publication of his News International titles —The Times, News of the World and The Sun—to new premises in Wapping, London. Many other publications followed suit and relocated to Wapping and elsewhere. In 2016, staff members of the Sunday Post were the last publication to leave Fleet Street. Now, Fleet Street consists of many banks and law firms. Although the functionalities of the original buildings have changed, many of the original artifacts remain and symbolize the integrity of its past.