[2] It was relaunched in 1747 as the Weekly Intelligencer, and again in 1790 with William Bulgin and Robert Rosser as proprietors with a liberal outlook.
[2][3][4] In the first half of the 19th century, William Henry Somerton was writing for the Mercury, including reporting the Bristol Riots of 1831, which took place after the House of Lords rejected the second Reform Bill.
The reporting and coverage of other issues of the day, in which the Mercury was seen as 'reformist',[5] along with other regional papers, was influential in the reform of parliament in 1832.
This included poetry and in 1840 published two to four poems in each weekly edition.
[4] In 1878, the paper installed new rotary printing presses in offices in Broad Street moving from its earlier premises in Tower Lane.