Aldric Montlior

Aldric Montlior founded the Montlior Press in 1962, in two rooms above a printworks on Chancery Quay in Meridale. The first edition of the Meridale Chronicle was published on 4 September of that year, produced by a staff of eleven on a press bought on credit.

He led the Group as executive chairman for its first forty-nine years, through the acquisition of the Coravian Courier in 1971, the establishment of Montlior Media in 1984 and the launch of Montlior Wire in 1996. In each case he insisted on separate incorporation and a separate board — the structural principle the Group still follows.

He took Montlior Group public on the Meridale Stock Exchange in 2011 and stood down as an executive on the same day, becoming non-executive Chairman. The dual-class structure adopted at listing, which vests a controlling interest in the Montlior Foundation, was designed on his instruction to make the newsroom expensive to capture.

He was the principal author of the Editorial Independence Charter adopted in 2018, including the provision that binds the Chairman and the controlling shareholder as tightly as it binds management.