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NEWSPAPERS
[BRITISH


Pall Mall abandoned in 1892. Gradually these changes took effect. In 1900 Mr Theodore Andrea Cook, who had been assistant-editor since 1898, became editor for a brief period, and subsequently Mr Ronald MacNeill (till 1903) acted in this capacity, with Mr W. D. Ross as manager. Meanwhile the St James’s Budget, which up to 1893 had been a weekly edition of the Gazette, was turned into an independent illustrated weekly, edited from the same office by Mr J. Penderel-Brodhurst (afterwards editor of the Guardian), who had been on the editorial staff since 1888; and it continued to be published till 1899. In 1903 the St James’s was sold to Mr C. Arthur Pearson, who in 1905, having bought the morning Standard, amalgamated the St James’s with the Evening Standard.

The Evening Standard had been founded in 1827 (see under the Standard above), and when it was amalgamated with the St James’s Gazette in 1905, the two titles covered a new paper, in a new form, as the penny Evening Standard and St James’s Gazette.Evening Standard.

When the Pall Mall Gazette was sold to Mr Astor in 1892 and converted into a Conservative organ, Mr E. T. Cook, the editor, and most of his staff, resigned, and in 1893 they came together again on the Westminster Gazette, newly started for the purpose by Sir G. Newnes (who had made a fortune out of Tit-bits and other popular papers) as a penny Liberal The Westminster Gazette. evening paper. It was printed on green paper, but the novelty of this soon wore off. The paper was conducted on the lines of the old Pall Mall, and it had the advantage of a brilliant political cartoonist in F. Carruthers Gould. In 1895 Mr Cook was appointed editor of the Daily News, and his place was ably filled by Mr J. Alfred Spender, who had been his assistant-editor, Mr Gould (who was knighted in 1906) being his chief assistant. Apart from Sir F. C. Gould’s cartoons, the Westminster became conspicuous in London evening journalism for its high standard of judicious political and literary criticism. It gradually became the chief organ of Liberal thought in London. One of its early literary successes was the original publication of Mr Anthony Hope’s Dolly Dialogues, and it continued to maintain, more than any other evening paper, the older literary and political tradition of the “gentlemanly journalism” out of which it had sprung. In 1908 a change of proprietorship took place, the paper being sold by Sir G. Newnes (d. 1910) to Mr (afterwards Sir) Alfred Mond, but without affecting the personnel or policy of the paper.

The first modern English evening newspaper to be issued at a halfpenny was the London Evening News—afterwards known as the Day. It was started in 1855, but soon failed to meet expenses and disappeared from the scene. In 1868 appeared the London Echo, published by Henry Cassell. It had for its first editor, until 1875, Mr (afterwards Sir) Arthur Arnold Halfpenny Evening Papers. (1833–1902), afterwards M.P. for Salford (1880–1886) and chairman of the London County Council (1895–1896), who was well known both as a writer and traveller and as founder of the Free Land League (1885). Baron Albert Grant (1830–1899), the pioneer of modern mammoth company-promoting,[1] afterwards took the Echo in hand and wasted a fortune over it; and eventually it was owned for some years by Mr Passmore Edwards, coming to an end in 1905. The Evening News was begun at a halfpenny in 1881 as a Liberal organ, but was shortly afterwards bought by a Conservative syndicate. It saw stormy times, and at the end of thirteen years it had absorbed £298,000 and was heavily in debt. Its shares could then be purchased for threepence or fourpence each. In August 1894 it was purchased by Messrs Harmsworth for £25,000, and under Mr Kennedy Jones’s management developed into a highly successful property. On 17th January 1888 the first number of the Star appeared, under the editorship of Mr T. P. O’Connor (b. 1848), as a half penny evening newspaper in support of Mr. Gladstone’s policy. When Mr O’Connor left the paper, Mr H. W. Massingham became its editor, and subsequently Mr Ernest Parke. In 1909 the Star was acquired by a new proprietorship in which Messrs Cadbury and the Daily News had an important share. From the first it was conspicuous for its advanced attitude in politics, and also for excellent literary criticism. In 1893 Mr T. P. O’Connor founded the Sun, which eventually passed into the hands of a succession of proprietors and came to an end in October 1906.

As regards the purely sporting press in London, Sporting Life, started in 1859, became a daily in 1883, and in 1886 incorporated the old Bell’s Life. The daily Sportsman, the leading paper, was founded in 1865. The financial daily press is a modern creation and has taken many shapes; the Financier was the first regular daily, but in Sporting and financial dailies. 1884 the Financial News, under Mr H. H. Marks, made its appearance, and in 1888 the Financial Times; and these became the leading papers of their class.

The London weekly press (see also under Periodicals). has always worn a motley garb. Weekly publication facilitates the individuality of a journal, both as respects its editorship and as respects the class of readers to which it more especially addresses itself. From the days of Daniel Defoe there have always been newspapers bearing the unmistakable impress of an London weekly newspapers. individual and powerful mind. Cobbett’s Weekly Register affords perhaps as striking an illustration of journalism in its greatness and in its meanness as could be found throughout its entire annals. And Cobbett’s paper has had many successors, some of which, profiting by the marvellous mechanical appliances of the present day, have attained a far wider popular influence than was possessed by the Weekly Register in its most prosperous days.

The history of the weekly reviews practically begins with the Examiner, which was founded in 1808 and had a long career as one of the most prominent organs of the Liberals, ending in 1881. That its literary reputation was great resulted naturally from a succession of such editors as Leigh Hunt, Albany Fonblanque, John Forster and Henry Morley. This was succeeded in January 1817 by the foundation of the Literary Gazette, the proprietor of which was Henry Colburn and the first editor William Jerdan. Jerdan succeeded in inducing Crabbe and Campbell to contribute to it, and among those who assisted him were Bulwer Lytton, Barry Cornwall and Mrs Hemans. The Literary Gazette came to an end in 1862. At the end of 1820 Theodore Hook founded John Bull, which for a time had extraordinary popularity; to it he contributed the most brilliant of his jeux d’esprit.

Epochs in the development of this form of literature were marked by the foundation of the Athenaeum by James Silk Buckingham in January 1828 and by that of the Spectator by Robert Stephen Rintoul later in the same year.

The Spectator was edited for thirty years by Robert Rintoul. In 1858 the latter sold the paper to Mr Scott, who retired, however, from the editorship after a few months; and for a time the Spectator was in low water. In 1861 it passed into the hands R. H. Hutton (q.v.) and Meredith Townsend, and under them became a successful exponent of moderate Liberalism Spectator and Saturday Review. and thoughtful criticism, particularly in the discussion of religious problems, such as were uppermost in the days of the Metaphysical Society. The high character and literary reputation of the Spectator were already established when, in 1897, it passed into the hands of Mr J. St Loe Strachey (b. 1860), but under him it became a more powerful organ, if only because it more than maintained its position while the other weekly papers declined. Unionist in politics since 1886, the Spectator after 1903 was the leading organ of Free Trade Unionists who opposed tariff reform, until the progress of socialism and the extravagance of Mr Lloyd-George’s budget in 1909 caused it to accept the full policy of the Unionist party in preference to the dangers of socialistic radicalism. No paper in London, it may well be said, has earned higher respect than the Spectator, or carried more weight in its criticisms, both on politics and on literature. This has not been on account of any special brilliance of the pyrotechnic order, but because of continuous sobriety and good sense and unimpeachable good faith.

The Saturday Review, on the other hand, is important historically rather for the brilliance of its “palmy days.” First published on the 3rd of November 1855, it was founded by A. J. B. Beresford Hope (1820–1887), a brother-in-law of Lord Salisbury, M.P. for Maidstone and for Cambridge University, and a prominent churchman and art patron; with John Douglas Cook (1808–1868) as editor. Mr Hope was the son of James Hope (1770–1831), author of Anastatius; and it was reputed that Douglas Cook was “Anastatius” Hope’s natural son. For several years the Saturday maintained an exceptional position in London journalism. On the political side it was at first Peelite, but the strong churchmanship of Mr Beresford Hope and antagonism to Mr Gladstone did much to bring it round to a pronounced Conservative view. Most, though not all, of its early staff had already worked under Mr Cook, when he was editor of the Morning Chronicle (from 1848 to 1854). In its literary comment it gave much space to articles of pure criticism and scholarship, and almost every writer of contemporary note on the Tory side contributed to its columns. But the matter which did most to give it its peculiar character was found in its outspoken or even sensational “middles”—“The Frisky Matron,” “The Girl of the Period” (by Mrs Lynn Linton), “The Birch in the Boudoir,” &c. The editorship remained in the hands of Mr Cook till his death in 1868. In 1861 a secession from the Saturday lasting till 1863, led to the temporary brilliance of the London Review (1860–1868), started by Charles Mackay. Douglas Cook was succeeded by Philip Harwood (1809–1887), who had followed him from the Morning Chronicle and under whom Mr Andrew Lang became a contributor, with others of note. Mr Harwood retired in 1883, and was succeeded by his former assistant Mr Walter Herries Pollock, under whom the paper underwent some modifications in form to meet changes in the public taste; Mr G. Saintsbury and Mr H. D. Traill were then prominent members of the staff, and Mr Frederick Greenwood wrote for the paper till he started the Anti-Jacobin. In 1894 the Saturday Review


  1. Albert Grant, who took that name though his father’s was Gottheimer, was given the title of baron by King Victor Emmanuel of Italy in 1868 for his services in connexion with the Milan picture gallery. He made a large fortune by company-promoting, and in 1865 became M.P. for Kidderminster. He became a prominent public character in London. In 1873 he built Kensington House, a vast mansion close to Kensington Palace, which in 1883 was demolished and the site seized by his creditors. In 1874 he bought up Leicester Square, converted it into a public garden, and presented it to the Metropolitan Board of Works. But soon afterwards he failed, and from 1876 to his death he constantly figured in the law-courts at the suit of his creditors.