SKIM through the first- ever edition of the Liverpool Daily Post and it hardly looks like the start of a revolution in regional journalism.

Michael Whitty, a Dubliner who was once Liverpool’s chief constable, was ahead of the game when he spotted a change in taxation law allowed him to launch a new daily newspaper and charge just a penny a copy.

But where was the trumpeted news the Daily Post had arrived? The front page of the first edition on June 11, 1855, was full of advertisements. And the main news inside seems to have been a lengthy analysis of the progress of the Crimean War, thousands of miles away.

It was the style of the day. And to leaf through the Daily Post archives is to explore not just the history of Liverpool’s professional classes but the history of newspapers and communications itself.

Nearly 160 years later, the advertisements are as fascinating as the news itself. Messrs Gabriel, surgical and mechanical dentists of Duke Street, were offering to painlessly fix teeth without pain at a moderate charge, with home visits between 10am and 7pm. Thompson and Capper, homeopathic chemists of Bold Street, were offering Titterton’s new electric-pointed hair brushes.

Messrs Gabriel have long vanished into history, but Runcorn-based Thompson and Capper is still in business making medical tablets.

And so the Daily Post moved on through Victorian times. Sober, respectable and not a paper given to hyperbole and exaggeration. In 1902, it was merged with an older competitor as the Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury – but the style was very much the same.

Come 1912, and the loss of the Titanic was a disaster that struck at the very heart of Liverpool. She was the flagship of the White Star Line, registered in Liverpool and, in the fullness of time, would have been a regular visitor to the Mersey, had she not struck an iceberg and sunk on her maiden voyage on the night of April 14-15, 1912.

Did the catastrophic news make the front page? Not a word of it. The small advertisements were there as ever before with the dreadful news TITANIC SUNK reserved for an inside page. “Terrible Disaster in the Atlantic. Night collision with iceberg. Founders in four hours. 1,684 lives lost. Only 675 saved.”

In 1912, the transatlantic telegraph meant at least the Daily Post and its competitors had a good idea of what had happened within 24 hours of the disaster, even though first reports had been far more optimistic and evening papers across the country the night before had been wrong-footed proclaiming everyone was believed safe.

Seven-and-a-half-years later, the end of the Great War at last justified a headline stretching across all seven columns on November 12, 1918 – TERMS OF GERMAN SURRENDER: ALLIES TO OCCUPY RHINE LANDS, even though the local report said in a single column that Liverpool’s celebrations had been restrained.

Much the same style announced the start of another war, in September, 1939. But, within a year, the Daily Post had undergone a revolution – at long last news was on the front page and it was starting to look more like a recognisably modern newspaper.

In the post-war years, the Post would often follow the national papers in its choice of news, leading off on events such as the assassination of US president John Kennedy and the moon landings. But, as the 1970s and 80s advanced, there was a subtle shift towards supplying local and regional news above all else.

In the 1980s, the paper went tabloid – just in time for events like the Toxteth riots in 1981. And, by the late 1990s, there had been yet another revolution with the arrival of colour.

Now we are in the midst of yet another revolution. After 157 years, the Daily Post may no longer be daily – but interesting and exciting times lie ahead.

*Click here to see a history of the Daily Post in front pages