The Western Gazette is a weekly paper first published in Yeovil in 1863 by Charles Clinker. Clinker was originally from Hampshire, but had worked as a journalist in Bridport, Dorset. He chose to establish his paper in Yeovil to capitalise on the new rail network in the area which greatly assisted distribution. The Gazette therefore circulated over a wide area of Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire Hampshire and Berkshire. The success of the Gazette encouraged Clinker to buy the Western Flying Post & Mercury (which combined the Western Flying Post (1744) and the Sherborne Mercury (1737) and he incorporated it into the Western Gazette.

In 1886, Clinker attempted to sell the Gazette to local Liberal interests, and when they refused to buy, he sold it to the Conservatives, who formed a limited company (the Western Gazette Company Ltd) to run the paper. It had a circulation of 30,000 a week in the 1880’s.