The Illustrated London News founder Herbert Ingram was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1811, and opened a printing, newsagent, and bookselling business in Nottingham around 1834 in partnership with his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Cooke. As a newsagent, Ingram was struck by the reliable increase in newspaper sales when they featured pictures and shocking stories. Ingram began to plan a weekly newspaper that would contain pictures in every edition.^[3]

Ingram rented an office, recruited artists and reporters, and employed as his editor Frederick William Naylor Bayley (1808–1853), formerly editor of the National Omnibus. The first issue of The Illustrated London News appeared on Saturday, 14 May 1842, timed to report on the young Queen Victoria's first masquerade ball. Its 16 pages and 32 wood engravings covered topics such as the war in Afghanistan, the Versailles rail accident, a survey of the candidates for the US presidential election, extensive crime reports, theatre and book reviews, and a list of births, marriages, and deaths. Ingram hired 200 men to carry placards through the streets of London promoting the first edition of his new newspaper.

Costing sixpence, the first issue sold 26,000 copies. Despite this initial success, sales of the second and subsequent editions were disappointing. However, Ingram was determined to make his newspaper a success, and sent every clergyman in the country a copy of the edition that contained illustrations of the installation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and by this means secured a great many new subscribers.

Its circulation soon increased to 40,000, and by the end of its first year was 60,000. In 1851, after the newspaper published Joseph Paxton's designs for the Crystal Palace before even Prince Albert had seen them, the circulation rose to 130,000. In 1852, when it produced a special edition covering the funeral of the Duke of Wellington, sales increased to 150,000; and in 1855, mainly due to the newspaper reproducing some of Roger Fenton's pioneering photographs of the Crimean War (and also due to the abolition of the Stamp Act that taxed newspapers), it sold 200,000 copies per week.

Competitors soon began to appear; Lloyd's Illustrated Paper was founded later that year, while Reynold's Newspaper opened in 1850; both were successful Victorian publications, albeit less successful than The Illustrated London News. Andrew Spottiswoode's Pictorial Times lost £20,000 before it was sold to Ingram by Henry Vizetelly, who had left the ILN to found it. Ingram folded it into another purchase, The Lady's Newspaper, which became The Lady's Newspaper and Pictorial Times. Vizetelly was also behind a later competitor, Illustrated Times in 1855, which was similarly bought out by Ingram in 1859.

Ingram's other early collaborators left the business in the 1850s. Nathanial Cooke, his business partner and brother-in-law, found himself in a subordinate role in the business and parted on bad terms around 1854. The departure of William Little was in 1858; in addition to providing a loan of £10,000, he was the printer and publisher of the paper for 15 years. Little's relationship with Ingram deteriorated over Ingram's harassment of their mutual sister-in-law.

Herbert Ingram died on 8 September 1860 in a paddle-steamer accident on Lake Michigan, and he was succeeded as proprietor by his youngest son, William Ingram, who in turn was succeeded by his son, Sir Bruce Ingram (1877–1963) in 1900, who remained as editor until his death.

By 1863, The Illustrated London News was selling more than 300,000 copies every week, enormous figures in comparison to other British newspapers of the time. The death of Herbert and his eldest son left the company without a director and manager. Control passed to Ingram's widow Ann, and his friend Sir Edward William Watkin, who managed the business for 12 years. Once Ingram's two younger sons, William and Charles, were old enough, they took over as managing directors, although William took the lead.

This was also a period of expansion and increased competition for the ILN. As reading habits and the illustrated news market changed, the ILN bought or established a number of new publications, evolving from a single newspaper to a larger-scale publishing business. As with Herbert Ingram's purchases in the 1850s, this expansion was also an effective way of managing competition – dominating markets and buying out competing ventures. As with the acquisitions of the 1850s, several similar illustrated publications were established in this period by former employees of The Illustrated London News.

Serious competition for the ILN appeared in 1869, with the establishment of The Graphic, a weekly illustrated paper founded by W. L. Thomas. Thomas was a former wood engraver for The Illustrated London News, and brought his expertise in illustrated publishing to his new magazine. The Graphic was highly popular, particularly for its coverage of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and was well regarded among artists; Vincent van Gogh was a particular admirer.

William Ingram became chief proprietor of The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (est. 1874), and The Lady's Pictorial, which may have been a later title of The Lady's Newspaper and Pictorial Times. The Penny Illustrated Paper, aimed at a working-class readership, was established by the news company shortly after Ingram's death in 1861 in response to the abolition of stamp and paper taxes, which made cheaper publications possible. The Penny Illustrated Paper ran until 1913.

In 1893, the ILN established The Sketch, a sister publication that covered lighter news and society events with the same focus on illustration. From this point, the name of the company changed to the Illustrated London News and Sketch Ltd.

In 1899, ILN editor Clement Shorter left the paper to found his own publication, The Sphere, which published its first issue on 27 January 1900. Ingram and The Illustrated London News responded by establishing a competing magazine, The Spear, which appeared two days before The Sphere on 25 January 1900. The name was deliberately chosen to confuse and siphon off readers, and advertisements for The Sphere emphasised the difference between the magazines: "S-P-H-E-R-E… you may be offered something else you don't want" While editor of the ILN, Clement Shorter had been instrumental in the establishment and publication of The Sketch. In 1903, he established The Tatler as a similar sister publication for The Sphere, with a similar focus on illustrated culture and society news. With the departure of Shorter, the role of editor of the ILN was taken over by Bruce Ingram, the 23-year-old grandson of the paper's founder.

Bruce Ingram was editor of The Illustrated London News and (from 1905) The Sketch, and ran the company for the next 63 years, presiding over some significant changes in the newspaper and the publishing business as a whole.

Photographic and printing techniques were advancing in the later years of the 19th century, and The Illustrated London News began to introduce photos and artwork into its depictions of weekly events. From about 1890, The Illustrated London News made increasing use of photography. The tradition of graphic illustrations continued, however, until the end of World War I. Often, rough sketches of distant events with handwritten explanations were supplied by observers and then worked on by artists in London to produce polished end products for publication. This was particularly the case where popular subjects such as colonial or foreign military campaigns did not lend themselves to clear illustration using the limited camera technology of the period. By the 1920s and 1930s, the pictures that dominated each issue of the magazine were almost exclusively photographic, although artists might still be used to illustrate in pictorial form topics such as budgetary expenditure or the layout of coal mines.

In 1928, a major business merger had Illustrated London News move to new headquarters at Inveresk House, 1 Aldwych, (also known as 364 Strand), London, where The Illustrated London News and The Sketch were united with six of their former competitors under the parent company, Illustrated News Ltd. As eight of the largest titles in illustrated news, these were newly dubbed the 'Great Eight' publications. The Illustrated London News, the flagship publication, was supported by sister publications The Sketch, The Sphere, The Tatler, The Graphic, The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, The Bystander, and Eve. With the exception of The Tatler, these publications remained as part of Illustrated News Ltd. until their closure at various times in the 20th century.