In 1804 the first weekly newspaper appeared in Wales when The Cambrian was published in Swansea.

Swansea was an ideal centre for such a venture. It was developing into a busy commercial and industrial town with sea and land communication facilities for distributing the newspaper. The Cambrian circulation was restricted to the small minority in the principal towns of south Wales who were able to read English. The venture proved successful and was soon followed by other weeklies such as The North Wales gazette, established in Bangor in 1808, and The Carmarthen journal, established in Carmarthen in 1810.