Land and Water

Land and Water Magazine

There were two separate British magazines entitled Land and Water which at the current time (March 2014) are completely mixed up in sources available online.

The Country Gentleman: Land and Water

The first Land and Water magazine began in 1862 as the Sporting Gazette, continuing in 1879 as the Sporting Gazette and Agricultural Journal, becoming in 1880 the Country Gentleman, Sporting Gazette and Agricultural Journal, then in 1903 the Country Gentleman, in 1905 Country Gentleman and Land and Water, and from 1916–1920 (?) Land and Water.

As the names of the earlier magazines suggest, this first Land and Water magazine was primarily concerned with country, agricultural and sporting matters that would be of interest to country gentlemen. Land and Water was a title that expressed an idea that would have appealed to those interested in country matters, field sport, sea, river fisheries and practical natural history, such as the members of the Land & Water Club of Bolton,[1] England, although they were in no way connected with the publication. It was a name that conjured up connections with the earth, rivers and seas that was calculated to appeal to those interested in the traditional pursuits of hunting shooting and fishing.

The first Land and Water magazine was published weekly by the Country Gentleman Publishing Co. Ltd. owned by Mr J St Loe Strachey, editor of The Specator.[2] The Country Gentleman: Land and Water was later incorporated with The Field magazine,[3] which appealed to much the same audience as Land and Water, and is still being published.

Land and Water: The World's War

The second Land and Water magazine was a British weekly journal published from 1914 to 1920. It was initiated by Jim Allison, then advertisement manager of The Times and devoted to the progress of the First World War and the events in its immediate aftermath.

It was edited by the well-known Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc. Editing it was the only steady employment ever held by Belloc, who otherwise "lived by his pen". Belloc made numerous trips to the Western Front on behalf of the paper, and also collected information from well-placed friends in the ranks of the Army. The journal gained quick popularity and within a short time of being launched its circulation passed the hundred thousand mark.

Belloc, always a forthright and bellicose writer, excelled in warlike editorials and stirring articles. He had always had considerable dislike for the Germans, going back to his French antecedents and to having served in the French Army at the time when French bitterness over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine was at its peak. During the war, this was very much in tune with prevailing British attitudes. In various articles Belloc characterised the war being fought as a duel between "Pagan Barbarism" and "Christian Civilization", ignoring the fact that the opposite side was quite as Christian as Britain and France and that numerous fellow-Catholics were fighting on the opposite side, especially from thoroughly Catholic Austria.

The journal was charged with highly inflated estimates of enemy casualties, and Belloc's over-optimistic estimates of when the war would end with an Allied victory were several times proved premature - which did not harm its popularity. On one occasion during the war Belloc is known to have confidentially told G. K. Chesterton, with whom he was friendly, that "it is sometimes necessary to lie damnably in the interests of the nation".

During the war the magazine also employed Arthur Pollen as writer on naval issues.

After the end of the war, the journal continued covering world events, such as the Treaty of Versailles and the Russian Civil War, where Belloc strongly supported an intervention to crush the Bolsheviks. However, in 1920 it ceased publication.

Country Gentleman vs. County Gentleman

In the mix up between the two magazines, a typo has also been introduced and Country Gentleman, the one time name of the earlier magazine and publisher of the first Land and Water magazine has been misspelt as "County" Gentleman.

References

  1. ↑ Land & Water Club, Bolton, England: Papers read by members of the above club during the sessions of 1873-4 and 1874-5. Printed at the Guardian steam printing works, Manchester 1875
  2. ↑ Francis Troup's Cheap Cottage Makeover http://peasant-arts.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/francis-troups-cheap-cottage-makeover.html
  3. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Margery Fish, http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=48830

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