British Weekly

It was "a central force in shaping and promoting the 'Nonconformist conscience'", according to the Dictionary of Nineteenth-century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland.

Nicoll intended it to be the main vehicle for "liberal nonconformist opinion" and he succeeded in as much as the circulation numbers reached 100,000.

[4] A 2011 book entitled Voices of Nonconformity: William Robertson Nicoll and the British Weekly from The Lutterworth Press sets out how Nicoll founded the paper in order to "introduce Nonconformist readers to the best in contemporary culture as well as promote a liberal political agenda".

He followed stylistically in the footsteps of the Pall Mall Gazette, "including interviews of prominent personalities, use of line illustrations and photographs, special supplements, investigative reporting, sensationalist headlines, and serialised debates".

[7][8][9]) The biographer of Christian socialist and publisher Arthur Mee judges the British Weekly to have been the most influential of all of Britain's many religious newspapers.