[3] Potts supported the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, and on 5 April 1838 he launched The Guardian, or Monthly Poor Law Register to "disabuse the public mind when unfounded reports, likely to create alarm, and excite suspicion are circulated by those who, from the situations they occupy, may be supposed to possess better information than do the public generally.

When John Potts died in 1892 his newspaper published an obituary commemorating him as an "urbane and conscientious chief".

He completed the first draft by 1939, but paper for printing was rationed during the Second World War and for several years thereafter, preventing its publication.

[5] Since 2002 the younger William Potts has been commemorated by an Oxfordshire Blue Plaque at 16 Parsons Street, Banbury.

It competes with a rival weekly free paper, the Banbury Cake, that is published by Newsquest Oxfordshire.