The "Wessex Scene" initially began as "Wessex News" on 25 February 1936, and was published by students Union of the, then, University College. The Union had at this time just been granted a section of the main University building following new construction work and as a result had begun to expand in operations. From this foundation the paper was printed regularly in newspaper format with relatively few changes. The name changed to the current "Wessex Scene" in 1996 to reflect on the other content that was being fed into the paper and the publication launched online in the 2001 academic year.