The Coventry Evening Telegraph was founded in Coventry on 9 February 1891 by William Isaac Iliffe in partnership with Henry Sturmey. Iliffe already owned the weekly Coventry Times. It was Coventry’s first daily paper and appeared initially as the Midland Daily Telegraph. A 4-page broadsheet, it sold for a halfpenny. Before the year was out four editions per day were being produced, but the paper did not return a decent profit for many years.

According to the opening statement by the owners, the Telegraph would “advocate those high principles of Independent Liberalism which form the broad basis of the freedom and liberty of the people”. It would be political without being partisan or the representative of any faction. All public events would be covered irrespective of the direction they took. They promised that “the sheet will be bright and chatty” and “by including special features never before introduced into daily journalism in the Midlands” hoped to win the support of the public. Local, domestic and foreign news were covered as well as commercial and financial reports and sports coverage. From 1897 a pink sports edition was published on a Saturday evening. A khaki edition was produced to honour those returning from the Boer War.

The Midland Daily Telegraph became an evening paper in 1941, changing its name to the Coventry EveningTelegraph and continued to increase its circulation. It became the Coventry Telegraph in 2006.