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How did a daily crossword end up being published in The Times Newspaper?

Crosswords are said to be the world's most popular and widespread word game so its not surprising to see their history dates back to an Italian magazine in 1890 when a word game with a 4 x 4 grid format was published with the title Per passare il tempo (To pass the time). Another early example of a crossword puzzle was in the publication New York World in 1913 when a diamond shaped grid was used. The puzzles were originally known as "Word-Cross" then "Cross-Word" and only later as "Crosswords".
After WW1 crosswords were printed in book form and by the late 1920's crossword fever had swept the United States but , in Europe, they were frowned upon fearing that workers would be distracted by them and output affected.

In Britain, by the late 1920's, The Times Weekly Edition was printing a regular crossword and, at the insistence of letters written by Lieutenant Commander A.C.Powell RN, The Times Daily Edition agreed to print a daily crossword. So, on 1st February 1930, The Times Crossword N0.1 was published. This historic and original newspaper is available to purchase from Papers Past for £195 and includes the following days edition which gives the answers to the clues - truly a memorable piece of crossword history and the ultimate gift for any crossword fanatic (To order simply telephone Ian Willsher on 01872 261220).

For many years Mr. Adrian Bell set the The Times' daily puzzle in the popular "cryptic" style. In 1970 The Times newspaper ran a Crossword Championship. Competitors had to complete one of the qualifying crosswords which were printed in the newspaper in early May and organisers were inundated with 20,000 correctly completed crosswords. As the result of this a series of harder eliminator puzzles had to be published to whittle down the number of competitors to a more manageable level.

So after a reluctant start in early 1930 The Times Newspaper Crossword has been a popular daily pass time for many thousands of people, and as at today - 22nd December 2009 - puzzle number 24,415 remains to be solved and, as usual, I'm stuck on 1 Across.