1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Northcliffe, Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Visct.
NORTHCLIFFE, ALFRED CHARLES WILLIAM HARMSWORTH, 1st Visct. (1865-), British newspaper proprietor and statesman, was born July 15 1865 at Chapelizod, Dublin, the eldest of a family of fourteen. His father, Alfred Harmsworth (1837-1889), descended from an old Hampshire family, was a barrister-at-law of the Middle Temple and one of the standing counsel for the Great Northern Railway Company. His mother, Geraldine Mary (b. Dec. 24 1838), a woman of remarkable intellect and strong character, was a daughter of William Maffett, well known in Ireland in his time as a banker and land-agent, of Ulster-Scottish descent. Of the seven sons, the two eldest, Alfred and Harold, became members of the House of Lords as Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothermere respectively; the third, Cecil Bisshopp (b. 1869), became in 1915 Under-Secretary for Home Affairs and in 1919 Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, having entered the House of Commons as Liberal M.P. for Droitwich (1906-10) and subsequently sitting for S. Beds, (from 1911); while the fourth, Robert Leicester (b. 1870), who was created a baronet in 1918, entered the House of Commons in 1900 as Liberal M.P. for Caithness, a seat which he still retained in 1921. The other three sons were Hildebrand Aubrey (b. 1872), from 1901 to 1904 editor of the New Liberal Review; St. John (b. 1876), the creator of the “Perrier” mineral-water business; and Vyvyan George (b. 1881).
It was in 1867 that the Harmsworths moved to London, and the family means were then small. Alfred, the eldest child, was exceptionally energetic, studious and thoughtful. At 11 he went to Stamford grammar school and at 13 to Henley House school, West Hampstead, where in 1878 he started the first of his journalistic adventures, a school magazine. This was originally issued in MS. but was afterwards printed and sometimes set up by himself in his spare time. At 15 he did some work for Mr. Jealous, then editor of the Hampstead and Highgate Express, from whom he received his first very modest payment in journalism. In 1881 he began to work under a tutor for Cambridge, while contributing as a “free-lance” writer to the Bicycling News, Globe and the publications issued by James Henderson for boys and girls, in one of which Stevenson's Treasure Island made its first appearance. As secretary and companion to one of the third Lord Lilford's sons, he travelled extensively in Europe. On his return to London Sir William Ingram (of the Illustrated London News) made him assistant editor of his paper Youth at the age of 17; and he continued “free-lance” work for the press, contributing leading articles to various newspapers, among which was the Morning Post, and articles to the St. James's Gazette, where his work attracted the attention and praise of Frederick Greenwood. But his health temporarily broke down in 1884. Ordered to live out of London, he went to Coventry in 1885 and worked for the firm of Iliffe & Sons, owners of many publications, including the Midland Daily Telegraph. With them he remained till 1886. He subsequently regarded his experience during this period at Coventry as specially valuable. He declined the offer of a partnership made him by Mr. Iliffe before he was 21; and having saved nearly £1,000 went back to London, where he joined a general publishing business. This from the first had a promising existence. Among other ventures he started on June 16 1888 Answers to Correspondents, a weekly periodical intended to be a more popular form of Notes and Queries. Ere long it turned the corner and, as Answers, laid the foundation of what eventually became the largest periodical publishing business in the world, the Amalgamated Press. In 1889 larger offices had to be acquired. Alfred Harmsworth had already been joined by his second brother, Harold (see Rothermere, Lord), to whom he ascribed a great share of the success of the undertaking, particularly on the business side. He himself wrote much, outlined serials, trained young editors, discovered new writers and artists, and revolutionized the current methods of periodical journalism. The profits of the accumulated publications soon soared to £50,000 a year. In 1892 he published the first “net sales” certificate, showing that the actual sales of the various Harmsworth periodicals were over a million copies a week; and in that year Mr. Gladstone praised Answers for its “healthy and instructive reading.” In the next few years Alfred Harmsworth travelled much in Europe, India, Africa, Canada and the United States; he was a good athlete, excelling in lawn tennis, and in the days before the motor-car, which as far back as 1894 became one of his chief interests, was a great lover of horses, fond of cycling, and devoted to fishing. On April 11 1888, he had married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Milner, a West Indian merchant, and to her sure judgment and quick brain he always attributed much of his subsequent success.
On Aug. 31 1894 he and his brother Harold acquired the London Evening News, in which the Conservative party had sunk some £300,000. It was then losing money heavily, but it was at once reorganized by himself, his brother, Mr. Kennedy Jones and Mr. W. J. Evans, with such effect that the first working week yielded a profit of £7, and the first year one of £14,000. In the same year he fitted out an Arctic expedition under Mr. F. G. Jackson, which explored Franz Josef Land and assisted in the rescue of Nansen. In the general election of 1895 he stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate for Parliament at Portsmouth. On May 4 1896 a new halfpenny morning paper, the Daily Mail, was launched, “the busy man's newspaper,” as he called it. It embodied many innovations, a very full service of cables, the employment of numerous famous writers, condensation of unimportant topics, and costly and daring enterprises of various kinds. A comparison of past files of the London press shows how it revolutionized daily journalism. The most rapid machinery was used to the utmost; a system of arrangement was introduced which enabled the reader to know where to find the news he wanted. It was characteristic of the foresight which, with initiative, courage and tenacity, was among the secrets of its chief proprietor's success that one of the three leading articles in the first number dealt with the then almost unknown motor-car, in the future of which Alfred Harmsworth had a firm belief, being himself already a qualified driver. The Daily Mail rapidly attained an enormous sale, rising to 600,000 copies a day in the Boer War, and this gave him great influence on policy at home and abroad. In 1903 he founded the Daily Mirror; it was at first a complete failure, losing £1,500 a week, but after being soon transformed from a penny paper for women into a halfpenny illustrated morning journal, became as signal a success. In 1905 a Continental edition of the Daily Mail was established, with headquarters in France. In the same year Alfred Harmsworth was created a baronet, and in 1005 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Northcliffe. In 1906 he and his brothers acquired for their companies about 3,000 sq. m. of forest land in Newfoundland, with lakes, rivers and water transport, for the manufacture of paper and wood-pulp, the result being the formation of the Newfoundland Development Co., a gigantic enterprise with its works at Grand Falls — where 23,000 H.P. turbines produce large quantities of mechanical pulp and 200 tons of paper daily — two lines of railway, a port, and Atlantic and other steamers.
In 1908 Lord Northcliffe obtained control of The Times, to own which had always been one of the aims of his life. New machinery was installed, and the size of the paper greatly increased; in March 1914 he reduced the price to one penny, with the result of a large increase in circulation, though the enormous rise of 600% in the cost of paper during the World War forced a return to the old price of threepence. Meanwhile Lord Northcliffe had acquired the Weekly Dispatch; disposed of the Sunday Observer, which he for some time owned; and sold the Daily Mirror to his brother, Lord Rothermere; so that at the outbreak of the war “the Northcliffe Press,” so widely mentioned and abused by contemporaries, consisted of The Times; The Times Weekly Edition; Daily Mail; Overseas Mail; Evening News and Weekly Dispatch.
Among the reforms which Lord Northcliffe introduced into newspaper management were the five-day week for editors, sub-editors and reporters, a more generous payment of journalists and a system of profit-sharing by the chief members of his staffs.
From 1900 onwards, through his newspapers, he had exercised an ever-increasing influence on politics. He had at one time been anxious, like Edward VII. and Cecil Rhodes, to obtain a friendly understanding between England and Germany, but the Boer War caused him to abandon that idea as impracticable. His newspapers consistently pleaded the cause of a strong navy, and as consistently warned the nation for 20 years of the peril from Germany. From 1902 he sought to effect an entente with France, and also to promote agreements with Russia and the United States, whose sentiments and prejudices he had learnt in many visits. He opposed in 1911 the Declaration of London — a code of sea law which most naval officers condemned as “made in Germany” — and finally assisted in securing its rejection. This rejection enabled the British fleet to blockade with effect in the war. Through the Daily Mail he gave large prizes for airmanship, in which, from 1906 onwards, he took the warmest interest; the offer of a prize of £10,000 in 1906 for the first aeroplane flight from London to Manchester was received in some quarters with a good deal of derision, which vanished, however, when in 1910 the prize was won. His maiden speech in the House of Lords was devoted to the pressing claims of aircraft. He was a strong believer in the future of flying and a daily advocate of the value of aircraft in war. He was also interested from the first in submarines, in one of which craft he made an early and hazardous descent. For many years he was a strong supporter of his friend, Lord Roberts, in the campaign for national service.
In the World War he took the lead in advocating almost every measure of reform that was carried through in Great Britain, usually weeks or months before it was introduced. He was indeed described by Mr. L. J. Maxse as “the great driving force in our country during the war” (National Review, July 1917). He aimed at the most vigorous possible conduct of the struggle, and was from the first of opinion that the war would be long and desperately contested. The chief newspaper campaigns which he carried out, always with the aims of victory and close union between the Allies, were: (1) for the removal of Lord Haldane from the War Office in Aug. 1914; (2) for the organization of the munition supply and provision of high-explosive shells in April and May 1915, when he did not hesitate to lay the responsibility for the shortage of ammunition on Lord Kitchener in leading articles written by himself in the Daily Mail of May 19 and 21, the second of which was publicly burned on the London and other stock exchanges; (3) this campaign was one of the causes of the formation of the Coalition Ministry by Mr. Asquith; (4) throughout 1915 and early 1916, in the teeth of storms of abuse, he urged the necessity of introducing compulsory service as the sole means of winning the war; (5) he protested continuously against the excessive optimism of Mr. Asquith's Government and of its press supporters, and against the whole system of official secretiveness by which grave failure was concealed; (6) he called for the strict enforcement of the blockade and the stoppage of the supplies which were reaching Germany through neutral countries; (7) he pointed out the impossibility of conducting a successful war with a debating society of 23 or 24 persons, such as formed the Cabinet; (8) so far as the censorship would allow, he resisted the “side-shows,” such as the Dardanelles and Salonika campaigns, which absorbed so large a part of the national forces; (9) he continued his pre-war demand for the construction of aircraft and “the right kind of aircraft” on the largest possible scale, and he called for effective measures against Zeppelins and for warnings in the case of imminent air-attacks; (10) he urged the necessity of creating a strong naval war staff and taking offensive measures against the enemy submarines; (11) he insisted on the need for a system of compulsory food rationing.
While always active with his pen and through his press, he went repeatedly to the various battle-fronts, British, French, Belgian, Italian and American, and kept in close touch with the various staffs. Thus in 1916, at the crisis of the battle of Verdun, he visited Verdun (March 4), conferred with Gen. Pétain, watched the struggle, and the same night motored back to Paris and wrote a long dispatch which was reproduced in whole or part by 3,000 Allied or neutral newspapers, giving the welcome and unexpected news that Verdun was “unlikely to be taken.” He paid other visits — to Spain, whence he sent warning of the activity of the German propaganda, and to Switzerland, where he investigated the condition of the British interned prisoners. With his daily assistance, Sir R. Hudson raised through The Times fund a sum of approximately £21,000,000 for the British Red Cross, while Lady Northcliffe (who in 1918 was created G.B.E.) maintained a private hospital and took a prominent part in the control of Red Cross finance and operations. So wide was Lord Northcliffe's influence and so greatly feared by the Germans that they published a special periodical, the Anti-Northcliffe Mail, devoted entirely to clumsy attacks upon him as the chief Allied energizer in the war. In 1916 they issued their bronze “hate” medal of him. There is reason to believe that when Broadstairs was shelled on Feb. 24 1917, and Elmwood, his own house (where he was then staying), was hit, and three near-by deaths occurred, he was intentionally one of the targets of this German destroyer attack. In Dec. 1916 he gave his support to Mr. Lloyd George in the political crisis which led to the fall of Mr. Asquith's Government, and dealt the final thrust which brought that Government down, though after the Armistice, by reason of his objection to the long-drawn-out after-war negotiations with the Germans, he became Mr. Lloyd George's most persistent critic. He was offered office but declined, believing that it was his duty to keep his hands free and hold the Government up to the mark. He did, however, because the office was strictly non-political, accept the chairmanship of the Civil Aerial Transport Committee, on the establishment of that body in 1917.
Before the United States entered the war he was offered and declined the post of British ambassador at Washington. He received, however, an urgent call to go to the United States on May 30 1917. The War Cabinet had greatly desired him, after conference with leading Americans, to go to the United States as chairman of the much-needed British War Mission. He accepted this appointment, though with some reluctance. After an audi- ence with the King, he left England on June 2, arriving in New York on June n, with the understanding that he should not remain more than three months. During the next few months he coordinated the work of the numerous British departmental missions; controlled an expenditure of £10,000,000 to £15,000,000 a week; maintained the closest and most friendly relations with President Wilson and the American Government; and in a series of speeches and visits to the Middle West and eastern Canada he set forth the work that had yet to be done if the war was to be won, and the immensity of the British effort. Having prolonged his stay far beyond the original three months, he returned to London on Nov. 12 1917, when he was created a viscount, as Visct. Northcliffe of St. Peter-in-Thanet, for his services.
In a letter dated Nov. 15 1917 he declined Mr. Lloyd George's offer of the post of Air Minister, on the ground that he was indisposed to enter an administration with the energy of which he was by no means satisfied. But on Feb. 13 1918, on the distinct understanding that he was to remain free to criticise and suggest, he accepted the office of Director of Propaganda in Enemy Countries. To pave the way for operations among the nationalities subject to the Habsburgs, he secured an agreement between the Yugoslavs and the Italian Government, which played an important part in the defeat of the Austrian army and was subsequently embodied, in substance, in the peace terms. The evidence of numerous German generals, statesmen and writers is that the skilful direction of his propaganda against Germany destroyed confidence in the German people and weakened the German army on the eve of its last offensive (July 15 1918), when it seemed on the verge of decisive success. Gen. Ludendorff himself says: “Lloyd George knew what he was doing when, after the close of the war, he gave Lord Northcliffe the thanks of England for the propaganda which he had carried out. Lord Northcliffe was a master of mass-suggestion.” The deadliness of his propaganda lay in its veracity — in emphasizing such facts as the rapid movement of United States troops to Europe, the failure of the U-boat campaign and, when the Allied victories began, the enormous captures of guns and prisoners. An account of this work was given in Sir Campbell Stuart's Secrets of Crewe House (1920).
At the Armistice Lord Northcliffe was ill, suffering from an adenoma of the thyroid gland, for which, in June 1919, he underwent a serious operation, and it was only after some months that he gradually made a complete recovery. During the Peace Conference his press and the Continental Daily Mail in particu- lar exerted a powerful influence on the British Government, extracting from Mr. Lloyd George a promise to fulfil his election pledges and striving to maintain the closest and most cordial relations with France.[1] In July 1921 he went for a prolonged tour of the world.
In golf and motoring Lord Northcliffe found his main relaxations in later life, and he remained a keen and skilful fly-fisherman and salmon-angler. He was the author of volumes in the Badminton series on Motoring and Tarpon Fishing, and he also published a collection of letters, telegrams and accounts of his visits to the various fronts (At the War, 1916), of which 60,000 copies were sold. Simple and direct in style, his own writing was always marked by pugnacity and humour. His Verdun despatch has indeed been praised as a model for war correspondents, and throughout his newspaper organizations he was accustomed to insist on economy of words and the employment of straight-forward Anglo-Saxon diction. It was his regular practice to issue the frankest reports on his various papers to their staffs, abundantly illustrating the far-reaching character of his initiative in suggestion, severity in criticism and warmth of appreciation.
- (H. W. W.)
- ↑ It may be noted that, shortly after President Wilson first arrived in Paris, Lord Northcliffe obtained from him a statement of his views, expressing inter alia a modification of his earlier attitude on the “freedom of the seas.” Mr. C. H. Thompson, the American correspondent of the Associated Press, in his Peace Conference Day by Day (pp. 306-7), says that “this was one of those quiet but inestimable services which Lord Northcliffe rendered to his country and to the Prime Minister, who at that time was his close friend.”