THE newspaper that was to become the Mid-Devon Advertiser was born in Newton Abbot in 1863 – in an era of horses, carts and bicycles, and in the middle of the American Civil War. Queen Victoria was on the throne and Lord Palmerston was prime minister. The Newton Weekly Journal was established by printer, painter and picture-frame maker James Welford – who was proprietor, editor, reporter, compositor, reader, foreman, pressman, clerk, canvasser, stationer and bad-debt collector, with the help of just one other – in offices at 10 Queen Street, a former grocery shop.