{"id":5467,"date":"2016-11-01T11:43:30","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T11:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/?page_id=5467"},"modified":"2017-09-14T09:46:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T08:46:35","slug":"william-lydra-powell","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/the-people\/william-lydra-powell\/","title":{"rendered":"William Lydra Powell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>William was born in 1853 to William and Sophia Powell at Exeter. His father was a mason. On leaving school, William served an apprenticeship as a print compositor. He married Elizabeth Jane Boston of Exeter in 1873.<br \/>\nWilliam started on \u2018The Devon Weekly Times\u2019 moved later to \u2018The Torquay Times\u2019 and later to \u2018The North Devon Journal\u2019 at Barnstaple. Then he became associated with the National Press Agency, London, and subsequently started papers in the Home Counties. It was from \u2018The Mid-Surrey Times\u2019 at Richmond that he came to Launceston, and was instrumental in converting the purely local \u2018East Cornwall Times\u2019 into the wider sphere of \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/the-place\/launceston-businesses\/the-cornish-and-devon-post\/\">The Cornish and Devon<\/a>\u2019 building it eventually into what he called \u2018A Newspaper Circle\u2019; with separate \u2018Posts\u2019 for the different towns and areas. William \u00a0printed and published the first edition of \u00a0\u2018The Cornish and Devon Post\u2019 for the proprietors, <a href=\"http:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/the-people\/william-cater\/william-smale-cater\/\">W. S. Cater and Co<\/a>. He soon took over the paper becoming its editor.<br \/>\nHis was the age of expansion for \u2018The Cornish and Devon\u2019, he published not only the \u2018Bude and Stratton Post,\u2019 \u2018Holsworthy Post,\u2019 \u2018Callington Post,\u2019 \u2018Camelford and Delabole Post,\u2019 \u2018Okehampton Post\u2019 and \u2018Wadebridge Post,\u2019 but also the \u2018Bodmin Post\u2019 and the \u2018Padstow Post.\u2019<br \/>\nWilliam and Elizabeth first set up home at the Walk, Launceston but later moved to \u2018Devonia,\u2019 in Dunheved Road. They had no children.<br \/>\nWilliam Lydra Powell found time, too, to fight and win the battle for the <a href=\"http:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/the-place\/the-railway-the-coming-of\/the-coming-of-the-railway\/\">standard gauge railway in North Cornwall<\/a>; he sat for nine years on the Town Council; he wrote various guide-books and directories; he campaigned vigorously for his beloved Liberal Party. The papers prospered under his expert leadership, and growing, it was necessary for larger premises and so in 1895 the papers were moved to the more commodious building in what was then Western Road and also called the Western Assembly rooms. New machinery was installed for the purpose of more expeditious production.<br \/>\nDuring the early months of 1904, William\u2019s health deteriorated and he died after a hemorrhage on Saturday, April 16th, at his home, aged just 51. The funeral service held on Thursday, April 21st was conducted by the Wesleyan minister Rev. J. E. Crawshaw at \u2018Devonia,\u2019 with the following service at the interment at Launceston Cemetery being conducted by Rev. F. R. Bell. The flag on the Castle was flown at half mast in respect and the funeral was attended by a large contingent of the towns dignatories.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Visits: 36<\/p><!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-5467\" data-postid=\"5467\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-5467 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>. William was born in 1853 to William and Sophia Powell at Exeter. His father was a mason. On leaving school, William served an apprenticeship as a print compositor. He married Elizabeth Jane Boston of Exeter in 1873. William started on \u2018The Devon Weekly Times\u2019 moved later to \u2018The Torquay Times\u2019 and later to \u2018The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1095,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5467","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5467"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5470,"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5467\/revisions\/5470"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/launcestonthen.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}