The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette Daily Telegram was a daily offshoot of the weekly Exeter and Plymouth Gazette. It was first published in 1863 as a single sheet costing a halfpenny, but by 1869 it varied between 2, 3, or 4 pages. An advert on 3 Jan 1874 stated that “the Telegram is permanently enlarged to 4 pages daily” It was still priced at a halfpenny.

Proprietors in January 1869 were Charles Wescomb, William Brodie and George T. Donisthorpe. Donisthorpe owned the Bridgewater Mercury. Wescomb was an advertising agent and a local councillor who had originally purchased the Conservative Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette from Edward Woolmer’s estate following his death in 1857. Wescomb himself died in 1869.

By 1885 the Telegram was being printed by George Frederick Gratwicke for the Devon & Exeter Constitutional Newspaper Company Ltd. Gratwicke was managing editor of the Gazette and had previously worked on Thomas Latimer’s Devon Weekly Times. He later owned the (Devon Evening) Express & Echo.