In 1778, William Augustus Hickey set up a printing press at a cost of two thousand rupees. The following year, on 29 January, 1779, he founded The Bengal Gazette. It was called 'The Hickey's Bengal Gazette' or 'The Calcutta General Advertiser' and consisted of two pages only. It was not only the country's first newspaper to be printed in India, but was also the country's first English newspaper.

It was run from Calcutta, the then capital of British India and was a weekly newspaper. 

Following the strict printing regulations imposed by Warren Hastings, the press was closed down and sold out in 1782. 

Bengal Gazette was also the name of the first newspaper under Bengali ownership. It was brought out in 1818 and was published by Ganga Kishore Bhattacharya or, according to some, Gangadhar Bhattacharya. Although it was mainly a Bengali paper, it did occasionally contain items in English and Hindi. Harachandra Roy worked as an associate editor with Gangakishore. On 1 May, 1819, 'The Calcutta Journal,' edited by James Silk Buckingham, was transformed from a bi-weekly to a daily. It was the first daily newspaper of the subcontinent.