| Alfred Charles William Harmsworth | |
|---|---|
Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe |
|
| Born | July 15, 1865 Chapelizod, County Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | August 14, 1922 (aged 57) London, England, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Stamford Grammar School, Stamford, Lincolnshire, England[1] |
| Occupation | Publisher |
| Title | 1st Viscount Northcliffe |
| Spouse | Mary Elizabeth Milner[1] |
| Children | Katherine Dorothea Gearaldine Mary, Mrs. Wrohan[1] |
| Parents | Alfred and Geraldine Mary Harmsworth |
| Relatives | Cecil Harmsworth (brother) Harold Harmsworth (brother) Leicester Harmsworth (brother) |
Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (1865–1922) rose from childhood poverty to become a powerful British newspaper and publishing magnate, famed for buying stolid, unprofitable newspapers and transforming them to make them lively and entertaining for the mass market.
His company Amalgamated Press employed Arthur Mee and John Hammerton, and the Amalgamated Press subsidiary the Educational Book Company published the Harmsworth Self-Educator, The Children's Encyclopædia, and Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia.
During his lifetime, he exercised vast influence over British popular opinion. Megalomania contributed to a nervous breakdown shortly before his death.[2]
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Although born in Chapelizod, County Dublin, Harmsworth was educated at the Stamford School in Lincolnshire, England. He was the elder brother of Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, Cecil Harmsworth, 1st Baron Harmsworth, Sir Leicester Harmsworth, 1st Baronet and Sir Hildebrand Harmsworth, 1st Baronet.
Beginning as a freelance journalist, he founded his first newspaper, Answers (original title: Answers to Correspondents), and was later assisted by his brother Harold, who was adept at business matters. Harmsworth had an intuitive sense for what the reading public wanted to buy, and began a series of cheap but successful periodicals, such as Comic Cuts (tagline: "Amusing without being Vulgar") and the journal Forget-Me-Not for women. From these periodicals, he built what was then the largest periodical publishing empire in the world, Amalgamated Press.
Harmsworth was an early pioneer of tabloid journalism. He bought several failing newspapers and made them into an enormously profitable chain, primarily by appealing to the popular taste. He began with The Evening News in 1894, and then merged two Edinburgh papers to form the Edinburgh Daily Record.
On 4 May 1896, he began publishing the Daily Mail in London, which was a hit, holding the world record for daily circulation until Harmsworth's death; taglines of The Daily Mail included "the busy man's daily journal" and "the penny newspaper for one halfpenny". Prime Minister Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, said it was "written by office boys for office boys".[3] Harmsworth then transformed a Sunday newspaper, the Weekly Dispatch, into the Sunday Dispatch, then the highest circulation Sunday newspaper in Britain.
In 1899, Harmsworth was responsible for the unprecedented success of a charitable appeal for the dependents of soldiers fighting in the South African War by inviting Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Sullivan to write The Absent-Minded Beggar.[4] Harmsworth also founded The Daily Mirror in 1903, and rescued the financially desperate Observer and The Times in 1905 and 1908, respectively. In 1908, he also acquired The Sunday Times.
Amalgamated Press subsidiary the Educational Book Company published the Harmsworth Self-Educator, The Children's Encyclopædia, and Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia,.
Harmsworth was created a baronet, of Elmwood, in the parish of St Peter's, Thanet in the County of Kent in 1904.[5] In 1905, Harmsworth was elevated to the peerage as Baron Northcliffe, of the Isle of Thanet in the County of Kent,[6] and in 1918 was raised to Viscount Northcliffe, of St Peter's in the County of Kent, for his service as the head of the British war mission in the United States.[7]
Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st and last Viscount Northcliffe (born 16 July 1865, Chapelizod, County Dublin, Ireland – died 14 August 1922) married Mary Elizabeth Milner on 11 April 1888, at which time her married name became Harmsworth, and she was styled as Baroness Northcliffe, effective 27 December 1905. She was later elevated to Viscountess Northcliffe on 14 January 1918. She was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) and Dame of Grace, Order of St John (D.St.J), both in 1918. This union produced one daughter, but no male heir to carry on the baronetcy.
Northcliffe's ownership of The Times, the Daily Mail and other newspapers meant that his editorials wielded great influence over both "the classes and the masses".[8] In an era before TV, radio or internet, that meant that Northcliffe dominated the British press "as it never has been before or since by one man".[9] For example, his newspapers—especially The Times—reported the Shell Crisis of 1915 with such zeal that it brought down the wartime government of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, forcing him to form a coalition government. Lord Northcliffe's newspapers led the fight for creating a Minister of Munitions (first held by David Lloyd George) and helped to bring about Lloyd George's appointment as Prime Minister in 1916. Lloyd George offered Lord Northcliffe a post in his cabinet, but Northcliffe declined and was appointed Director for Propaganda.
Such was Northcliffe's influence on anti-German propaganda during the First World War, that a German war ship was sent to shell his country home in Elmwood, Kent in an attempt to assassinate him.[10] His former residence still bears a shell hole out of respect for his gardener's wife, who was killed in the attack.
However, Northcliffe's editorship of the Daily Mail in the run-up to the First World War, when the paper displayed "a virulent anti-German sentiment", led The Star to declare, "Next to the Kaiser, Lord Northcliffe has done more than any living man to bring about the war."[11]
In 1903, Harmsworth founded the Harmsworth Cup, the first international award for motorboat racing.
He was a close friend of Claude Johnson, Commercial Managing Director of Rolls-Royce Limited, and in the years preceding the First World War became an enthusiast for the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost.[12]
Northcliffe lived for a time at 31 Pandora Road, West Hampstead - this site is now marked with an English Heritage blue plaque.
Through his newspaper empire, Northcliffe promoted the ideas which led to the Group Settlement Scheme. The scheme promised land in Western Australia to British settlers prepared to emigrate and develop the land. A town founded specifically to support the new settlements was named Northcliffe, in recognition of the role that Lord Northcliffe played in bringing about the scheme.
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| New creation | Viscount Northcliffe 1918–1922 |
Extinct |
| Baron Northcliffe 1905–1922 |
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| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Baronet (of Elmwood) 1904–1922 |
Extinct |