Editors included John "Hoppy" Hopkins, David Mairowitz, Roger Hutchinson,[1] Peter Stansill, Barry Miles, Jim Haynes and playwright Tom McGrath.

[4] Irish poet Niall McDevitt served as the first online editor of IT, a position later held by Williams until his death in 2017. International Times was launched on 15 October 1966 at The Roundhouse at an 'All Night Rave' featuring Soft Machine and Pink Floyd.

Bands included Pink Floyd, The Pretty Things, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Soft Machine, The Move, and Sam Gopal Dream.

Published fortnightly, it became the leading British underground paper, its circulation peaking at around 40,000 copies in late 1968/early 1969, before another police raid, along with competition from newer publications such as Time Out led to declining sales and a financial crisis.

The paper Black Dwarf published a detailed floor-by-floor guide to Scotland Yard, complete with diagrams, descriptions of locks on particular doors and snippets of overheard conversation in the offices of Special Branch.

The anonymous author, or "blue dwarf," as he styled himself, described how he perused police files, and even claimed to have sampled named brands of whisky in the Commissioner's office.

Both are poetry collections – Royal Babylon by Heathcote Williams, an attack on the British monarchy, and Porterloo by Niall McDevitt, a book satirising the Conservative Party and registering the counterculture of 2011-12.

[citation needed] Many people who became prominent UK figures wrote for IT, including feminist critic Germaine Greer, poet and social commentator Jeff Nuttall, occultist Kenneth Grant, and DJ John Peel.

[8][9][10] The IT Archive was founded by Mike Lesser supported by fellow contributors and editors of IT including Mick Farren, John "Hoppy" Hopkins, Dave Mairowitz, Peter Stansill and Heathcote Williams amongst others.