The archive contains a complete run of the newspaper from 1785, but substantial holdings including many complete annual volumes date back to 1714, our earliest issue.
In the 
18th century the Stamford Mercury carried worldwide and national, as well as local news, while in the 19th century it was a regional paper covering all of eastern England. Only in recent times has the Mercury restricted its coverage to Stamford, South Lincolnshire and Rutland. It is a valuable research tool for all manner of local, national, European and early colonial history. Because of the wealth of names it contains, it is especially valuable to local and family historians.
Lincolnshire County Council has kindly lent us a large archive of research carried out by the late David Newton (Editor of The Stamford Mercury from 1954 – 1961). These notes and documents formed the basis of the work eventually published under the joint authorship of David Newton and local historian, Martin Smith as The Stamford Mercury: Three Centuries of Newspaper Publishing (Shaun Tyas Stamford 1999, ISBN 1 900289 28 8).