Mary Tourtel was created in 1920, at a time when the "Express" was in competition with "The Daily Mail" and its then popular comic strip "Teddy Tail", as well as the strip "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred" in "The Daily Mirror". The then news editor of the "Express", Herbert Tourtel, was approached with the task of producing a new comic strip to rival those of the "Mail" and "Mirror" and immediately thought of his wife Mary, already an established author and artist. Rupert Bear was the result and was first published as a nameless character in a strip titled "Little Lost Bear" on
Daily Express four million in 1967, below three million in 1975, and below two million in 1984. The "Daily Express" switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 (the "Mail" having done so six years earlier), and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers. In 1982, Trafalgar House spun off its publishing interests to a new company, Fleet Holdings, under Lord Matthews, but this succumbed to a hostile takeover by United Newspapers in 1985. Under United, the "Express" titles moved from Fleet Street to Blackfriars Road in 1989. Express