A nationally influential voice in the Chartist movement in the 1830s, it was sold to John Frederick Feeney in 1844 and was a direct ancestor of today's Birmingham Post.
[1] Historical copies of the Birmingham Journal, dating back to its first issue in 1825, are available to search and view in digitised form at The British Newspaper Archive.
[2] The newspaper's political tone changed dramatically in 1832, however, when it was sold to prominent Unitarian and Radical Joseph Parkes, who appointed R. K. Douglas as editor.
Chartism at the time was losing support in Birmingham through its adoption of a more extremist position in tune with the more pronounced class divisions of the cities of the North of England and Feeney and Jaffray's instinct was to follow local opinion rather than stay loyal to a movement.
[1] The boom in railway building of the late 1840s greatly boosted the market for classified advertising and by 1855 the Journal was making a profit of £5,000 per week, comparable to that of a national newspaper.