On February 7, 1830, the servants of Lord Graves entered his bedroom and encountered a terrible sight. There lay his lordship, his throat cut from ear to ear. By his candle there were two razors, but no suicide note.

This tragic and still mysterious incident would by now be entirely forgotten save for one thing: the coverage given to the Graves scandal resulted in this newspaper receiving its famous nickname. The Times became known as The Thunderer.

The death of Lord Graves resulted in the birth of the Times leading article as a powerful voice in public affairs. The leaders on Graves were not the first to appear in the paper — The Times was already 45 years old by 1830 — but the impact they made means that they rightfully belong at the beginning of the colourful story of Times leading articles, a story of which today's move to page two is the latest chapter.

What concerned Captain Edward Sterling, the paper's leader writer (and, by the way, also its theatre critic), was not so much Graves's death, but the inordinately swift inquest, convened the next morning and concluded within two hours.

From the Archive: Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?

There must remain a suspicion that Mr Jagger received a more severe sentence than would have been proper for any purely anonymous young man

• London, Thursday, February 111830

• After a trial lasting seven days

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Lord Graves, it was decided, had killed himself. The verdict and its speed smacked of a high society cover-up designed to avoid further scandal, and The Times said so. This leading article on such a lurid topic, a strongly worded polemic that as the paper itself put it had been “thundered out”, caused an understandable sensation. It led the Morning Post to call The Times The Thunderer. The name stuck.

As did the outlook that informed Sterling's articles. The Times has not always been consistent and certainly has not always been right. It has at its best, however, been, as Sterling was, trenchant without being unreasonable; independent without being utterly detached; high-minded without being pompous; questioning without being unwilling to accept decent answers; outside the Establishment without being contemptuous of it. And so we strive to remain.

Today's leading article is rather different from those printed by the early editors of The Times — by men such as Thomas Barnes and John Delane. It has always been a vehicle for expressing the paper's opinion but in those early days it was also the place to find the leading news stories of the day.

If, one day in 1812, you decided to skip the leader column, you might have missed that the Prime Minister had been assassinated. It was only in a leader that The Times reported Spencer Perceval's murder. A mere prime ministerial resignation might not make it until paragraph three of a leader, even though the news was a Times exclusive.

Similarly, one of the greatest scoops in this paper's history — the news that Robert Peel had decided to repeal the Corn Laws — appeared only in a leader. Over time, however, while leaders continued to provide fresh information along with opinion, the practice of using them to break big stories ceased.

The reason for this change was a revolution in the treatment of news. Today's Times can be contrasted with the paper's report on the battle of Trafalgar. The news story ambled through the facts for several columns, informing readers only right at the end that Admiral Nelson had been killed. The change in the coverage of news also established a distinctive feature of the paper: that opinion was for the opinion columns of The Times and news would be covered in as fair and balanced a way as possible.

By the middle of the 19th century Times leaders had reached maturity and been shaped by Delane into a serious force. A leading article in October 1854 berated the Government for the poor conditions in military hospitals at Scutari and Therapia.

The result was the establishment of the Soldiers' Sick and Wounded Fund, which paid for Florence Nightingale and her nurses and supplies. Within three months a further series of leaders appeared on the conduct of the Crimean War. “The noblest army ever sent from these shores has been sacrificed to the grossest mismanagement. Incompetency, lethargy, aristocratic hauteur, official indifference, favour, routine, perverseness, and stupidity, reign, revel and riot in the camp before Sebastopol.” The articles contributed greatly to the pressure that within a month felled the administration of Lord Aberdeen and elevated Lord Palmerston to Prime Minister.

It was outcomes such as these that one presumes Abraham Lincoln had in mind when he said: “The London Times is one of the greatest powers in the world —- in fact, I don't know anything which has much more power — except perhaps the Mississippi.”

This was generous of him, considering the verdict of The Times on his Gettysburg address: “The ceremony was rendered ludicrous by some of the sallies of the poor President ... Anything more dull and commonplace it would not be easy to imagine.”

President Lincoln was not the only head of state to note carefully the content of Times leading articles. Criticism on April 1, 1864, of Queen Victoria's seclusion from public life after the death of Prince Albert prompted Her Majesty to write a letter of protest directly to the paper. Her missive, defending her semi-retirement, was published in Court News on April 6. Despite her response, the criticism had its desired effect: the Queen returned to public life.

Another tangle with Queen Victoria sheds light on the composition of Times leaders. The Prince of Wales was fond of playing the illegal gambling game baccarat. Unfortunately he became mixed up in a lawsuit after a fellow player accused of cheating sued for defamation and the Prince was called as a witness. The Times leader was critical of the heir to the throne for his role in what was known as the Baccarat Case and the Queen, through an intermediary, sought to discover the author of the offending leader. The Editor, George Buckle, steadfastly refused to oblige. Leaders would remain anonymous, he declared. His resolve helped to establish that the Times leader is not merely the work of its author. Its power lies in the fact that it expresses the settled view of the paper.

Since the days of Delane the selection of topics and the line taken by leading articles have been a collective enterprise. Editors have varied in the frequency of meetings they held, the number of leading articles they wrote themselves and even the importance they attached to the contents of the leader columns, but all have insisted on being the last pen, sometimes rewriting heavily a leader drafted by one of the dedicated leader staff. This has not always led The Times down the right path. As Editor, Geoffrey Dawson was behind 20 leading articles in the month leading up to Munich, all supporting the ceding of the Sudetenland to Germany and promoting the paper's wider policy of appeasement.

On other occasions the paper has done better. Charles Douglas Home ensured that The Times was a clear supporter of the firm stance that ultimately ended the Cold War and Peter Stothard's Times was an early and articulate advocate of the policies that brought the Kosovo conflict to a successful resolution.

One of the most famous Times leaders of the modern era was also the product of the editor's instincts. When in 1967 Mick Jagger was jailed for a mild drug infringement, it offended against William Rees-Mogg's gentle liberalism. Rees-Mogg devoted a great deal of his time and attention to the paper's leading articles. As a result his editorials commanded attention, whatever their subject.

His Times questioned the heavy-handed efforts to make an example of Jagger and quoted Alexander Pope: “Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?” The singer was languishing in his cell at Brixton jail when a warder brought him a copy of that day's Times with the observation: “Well, it seems you'll be out soon.” Jagger was released within hours.

This ability to produce swift and sometimes surprising results remains. A recent Times leader critical of the Afghan Government so infuriated President Karzai that he responded by vetoing the appointment of Paddy Ashdown as United Nations representative to the country.

The Times leading article does not, however, always seek an immediate result. It is also a place for reflection and sober consideration. The news of the first atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima made the following day's Times. There was, however, no leading article on the subject. The leader writers thought that an immediate response to so momentous an event risked hasty judgment.

Readers had to wait another day. The Times cannot be rushed.

If you have comments about changes in The Times, please e-mail them to editor@thetimes.co.uk or post them to The Editor, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT. The success of The Times is underwritten by the intelligence of our readers.

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