Bristol's newspaper industry grew thanks to rising literacy and improving technology. Technology will hopefully help it survive in future, too.

Bristol's earliest papers were just a single sheet with news from London and Europe. They were popular with local merchants eager for information affecting their businesses.

Despite heavy taxation on sales and advertising, papers grew in size and scope. The 18th and 19th centuries saw dozens of different titles in Bristol at various times. They usually sold in neighbouring counties as well, and carried local and national news.

Although not everyone could read, these papers were often successful. The local press also had no competition from national daily papers until Fleet Street started using trains to carry papers to the provinces in the late 1800s.

Compulsory elementary schooling meant that by 1900 almost all Bristolians could read, so sales of cheap newspapers, produced on ever-improving presses, boomed.

The most important new title of the 20th century was the Evening Post, launched in 1932 by Bristol businessmen, and supported by hundreds of Bristolian shareholders. It billed itself as "the paper all Bristol asked for and helped to create."

Sales of local and regional papers are now declining across the country, but Bristol's main daily, the Post, still sells around tens of thousands of copies a day and has a popular website (www.thisisbristol.co.uk).

Local papers are adapting to the 21st century with websites carrying not just words and pictures, but video and instant reader comments as well. Other people have launched internet-only local news services, notably www.bristol247.com

The future might see the end of print, but people will still want local news.