The Henley Standard is the main local newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 in Henley-on-Thames

Henley-on-Thames

Henley-on-Thames is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire, England, about 10 miles downstream and north-east from Reading, 10 miles upstream and west from Maidenhead...

, Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is published by the Higgs Group and is one of only a few privately-owned local newspapers in the UK. It is the only newspaper dedicated entirely to the people of Henley and the surrounding districts.

The Standard covers Henley town and an area of south Oxfordshire

South Oxfordshire

South Oxfordshire is a local government district in Oxfordshire, England. Its council is based in Crowmarsh Gifford, just outside Wallingford....

 as far as Watlington

Watlington, Oxfordshire

Watlington is a market town and civil parish about south of Thame in Oxfordshire. The parish includes the hamlets of Christmas Common and Greenfield, both of which are in the Chiltern Hills. The M40 motorway is from Watlington.-History:...

 and Benson

Benson, Oxfordshire

Benson is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England. It is about north of Wallingford at the foot of the Chiltern Hills at the confluence of a chalk stream and the River Thames, next to Benson Lock...

, as well as Caversham

Caversham, Berkshire

Caversham is a suburb and former village in the unitary authority of Reading, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, within the royal county of Berkshire, on the opposite bank from the rest of Reading...

 and Wargrave

Wargrave

Wargrave is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, which encloses the confluence of the River Loddon and the River Thames. It is in the Borough of Wokingham...

 in Berkshire

Berkshire

Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

. The paper claims each edition is read by 35,000 people. Its current owner is John Luker and the editor is Simon Bradshaw, who joined on 6 October 2008 from the London Evening Standard.

The predecessor of the Henley Standard, first published in 1885, was titled The Henley Free Press. It became the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard in 1892. Its name was shortened in 1956 to the Henley Standard.

The Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard was the first organ to publish works by the author George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

. These were poems that the author, under his real name of Eric Blair, wrote when he was 10 years old on the outbreak of war in 1914 and when he was 12 on the death of Lord Kitchener

Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC , was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway...

in 1916.