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Franklin Thomasson and the Tribune: a Case-Study in the History of the Liberal Press, 1906–1908

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan J. Lee
Alan J. Lee
Affiliation:
University of Hull
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Extract

The Liberal daily newspaper the Tribune had only a brief life, from 15 January 1906 until 7 February 1908. Its failure was then and has since been attributed, largely by journalists, to its neglect of the ‘ realities ’ of the newspaper industry. The Tribune, it is said, was too good for its readers, and concentrated upon its leading articles to the neglect of its proper business as a newspaper, the news. It did not in other words fit the pattern which the ‘new journalism ’ of the 1890s had set. Indeed, in several important respects it was an attempt to reverse the trend, and to return to the old liberal model of journalism in which the newspaper was looked upon mainly as a vehicle for news and opinion, rather than a saleable commodity. The case of the Tribune encompassed this whole problem of the relationship between Liberalism and journalism, during a period in which both were undergoing a process of transformation and change. As such it is a case which deserves describing in more detail than has been done hitherto.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1973 , pp. 341 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

1 Gibbs, P., Journalists London (1952), pp. 128–9;Google ScholarScott, C. P., quoted by A. P. Ryan, Listener, 13 Oct. 1960.Google Scholar

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5 For example, Grant, J., The Newspaper Press (1871)Google Scholar, I, vi; Chisholm, H., Encyclopaedia Britannica (IIth edn, 1910—1911), p. 547;Google ScholarGretton, R. H., A Modern History of the English People (1912–1929) (1930 edn), pp. 213–14.Google Scholar

6 John Morley, quoted in Hobson, J. A., Democracy After the War (1917), p. 127.Google Scholar Cf. also Spender, J. A., The Public Life (1925), II, 108–9.Google Scholar

7 See H. Y. Thompson, proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette, quoted in Mills, J. Saxon, Sir Edward Cooke (1921), p. 115;Google ScholarBrooks, S., ‘The English Press ’, Harpers Weekly (1903), XLVII, 570.Google Scholar

8 In 1892 there were 30 newspaper proprietors and 29 journalists in the House of Commons. In 1906 there were 30 and 49 respectively, plus a newspaper manager, and five others loosely connected with the industry, see Thomas, J. A., The House of Commons 1832–1901 (1939)Google Scholar, and The House of Commons 1906–1911 (1958).

9 See Anon., , ‘Provincial Dailies — their present position ’, Bookman (London, 10 1891), I, 33.Google Scholar

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11 Ibid. p. 203. This was not quite the case, for there were still the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and the Sunderland Daily Echo which remained Liberal. Four of the 25 London mornings and 20 of the 79 remaining mornings were Liberal; 1 of the 8 London evenings, and 48 of the 115 other evenings were Liberal. These figures, of course, take no account of the size or influence of these papers. Mitchell's, Newspaper Press Directory, 1906.Google Scholar

12 Westminster Gazette, 31 May 1905, part of a press statement variations of which appeared in the Daily Chronicle, the Bolton Evening News, The Times, the Manchester Guardian and the Morning Post on 1 June 1905.

13 For this biographical information I am grateful to Mr T. Ashworth; Who Was Who ? 1897–1916; Hamer, H., Bolton 1838–1938 (1938).Google Scholar For the relationship with Cobden and Bright, see Morley, J., Life of Richard Cobden (1903 edn), II, 131, 223, 476;Google ScholarDiaries of John Bright (1930), pp. 204–5, 287, 288, 292, 354, 432.

14 Hamer, , op. cit.; Leicester Daily Post (hereafter LDP), 20 03 1906.Google Scholar He had to use an eartrumpet in the Commons, but according to a recorded remark of Sir Charles Dilke, ‘ no man had ever so neglected his natural advantages ’, Gwynn, S. and Tuckwell, G. N., The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Dilke (1917), II, 548.Google Scholar See also Armstrong, G. G., Memories (1944), p. 74.Google Scholar Just before his death he commissioned Hirst's, F. W.Arbiter in Council (1906)Google Scholar, see Hirst, F. W., In the Golden Days (1947), p. 232.Google Scholar

15 Gibbs, P., Crowded Company (1949), p. 87;Google ScholarAdventures in Journalism (1923), p. 96. Gibbs knew Bolton well, for he had been editor of a features agency at the turn of the century, and later had some strong words to say about Thomasson's treatment of his labour force, Journalists London (1952), p. 126. A photograph of Franklin is to be found in the Newsagents Booksellers‘ Review, and Stationery Market (hereafter NBR), 13 June 1906, and in Black and White, 10 June 1905.

16 Thomasson, F., ‘The Housing Question ’, Westminster Review (hereafter WR) (1903), CLIX, 259;Google ScholarArmstrong, , op. cit. p. 74; LDP, 20 03 1906.Google Scholar

17 Westhoughton Recorder, 28 Sept., 5 and 12 Oct. 1900; McCalmont, F. H. M., Parliamentary Poll Book (1906)Google Scholar; Dod's Parliamentary Companion (1901). Voting figures differ in these publications, but the majority was around 3,000. Thomasson's opponent, Lord Stanley, later Post-Master General, lost the seat to Labour in 1906.

18 Sale and Stretford Guardian, 20 and 22 Feb. 1901; Stretford Division Advertiser, 22 Feb. and 1 Mar. 1901. The majority was cut from 2,653 t o I, 297. Liberals captured the seat in 1906. McCalmont, , op. cit.Google Scholar and Armstrong, , op. cit. p. 74.Google Scholar

19 ‘The New London Daily ’, World's Work (1905–6), p. 177.

20 Thomasson, F., WR (1901), CLV, 368–9Google Scholar. Cf. also idem. ‘Land Nationalisation ’, WR (1900), CLIV, 164ft., and his review of Mark Judge, ‘The Ethical Movement in England in 1902 ’, WR (1903), CLIX, 153–60.

21 LDP, 20 Mar. 1906.

22 Leicester Daily Mercury, 20 Mar. 1906.

23 ‘Land Nationalisation ’, loc. cit. p. 162; review of Judge, loo cit. p. 260; ‘Land Ownership or the Right to Land, WR (1901), CLV, 527.

24 ‘Property in Land and Poverty ’, WR (1903), CLX, 48–58; ‘War and Trade ’, WR (1901), CLV, 1–14.

25 LDP, 22 Mar. 1906.

26 LDP, 20 Mar. 1906. Shackleton had been returned unopposed as L.R.C. candidate in 1902, and Herbert Gladstone had marked the seat down as one ‘where there is no difficulty ‘in his secret list of Mar. 1903 (M. Craton and H. W. McCready, The Great Liberal Revival 1903–06 (1966), p. 40), so it seems that Thomasson had in any case little chance of being allowed to fight it.

27 LDP, 20 and 23 Mar. 1906, where Alfred Lyttleton is mentioned as a possible candidate.

28 LDP, 20, 22, 23, 24, 29 and 30 Mar. 1906.

29 LDP, 28 and 29 Mar. 1906. Rolleston canvassed by returnable questionnaire!

30 LDP, 22, 24 and 28 Mar. 1906.

31 LDP, 31 Mar. 1906; Dod's Parliamentary Companion (1907).

32 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (1906–9).

33 He became a director of Letchworth Garden City according to an unidentified newspaper cutting of a letter on his death in 1941, kindly loaned to me by Mr J. F. Thomasson. See also The Times, 3 Dec. 1941.

34 Spender, Harold, The Prime Minister (1920?), p. 122.Google Scholar

35 Gardiner, A. G., Life of George Cadbury (1923), p. 217.Google Scholar This is the most authoritative account, and makes it clear that, as was most likely, it was F. and not J. P. Thomasson who was approached by Lloyd George, cf. Spender, H., David Lloyd George (Paris, 1919), p. 145 ff.Google Scholar For the letters, see Spender, , The Prime Minister, pp. 122—3.Google ScholarArmstrong, , op. cit. p. 110,Google Scholar mentions that Franklin was a director of the company. Gardiner, , op. cit. p. 217Google Scholar, and Armstrong, , op. cit. p. 110,Google Scholar put the sum at £20,000, but Spender, , The Prime Minister, pp. 122–3Google Scholar, and David Lloyd George, p. 145 ff., mentions £25,000. On Cadbury's caution about the whole venture, see Mills, J. Saxon, op. cit. p. 196.Google Scholar

36 Gibbs, , Adventures in Journalism, p. 96.Google Scholar Thomasson left £1,151,378: Daily Chronicle, 1 June 1905.

37 See note 12 above. I have found no evidence to support the view that the Tribune was started to rival The Times in expectation that the latter would deteriorate under the hand of Northdiffe, who was rumoured even then to be interested, see Pound, R. and Harmsworth, G., Northcliffe (1959). P. 306.Google Scholar

38 There were 300,000 £1 shares, 75,000 of which were termed ‘management shares ‘. 37,500 management shares were allotted to Thomasson, the others to remain at his disposal. He was to be ‘Governing Director ’, and to determine whether there should be any more, and who they should be. Directors‘fees were fixed at not more than £1,000 p.a. The original subscribers were Thomasson, William Hill, R. Balch, Henry Leslie, Frederic Irving Taylor, all journalists, R. Inchbold, accountant, and later secretary to the paper, and Thomas Edward Marks, Thomasson's private secretary, and later author of The Land and the Commonwealth (1913). Each subscriber held one ordinary share. Thomasson's mother, Katherine, held 37,500, and his wife one. These and subsequent details of shareholdings are taken from the Returns made to the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies, P.R.O., Company Returns, 85503.

39 It is said that Harmsworth started the Daily Mail on £15,000 but there appear to have been total committed assets of nearer £500,000, see Pound and Harmsworth, , op. cit. pp. 206—7.Google Scholar

40 Gibbs, , Adventures in Journalism, pp. 96–7.Google Scholar See also ‘The New London Daily ’, loc. cit. p. 176. For Birrell's reception of the eventual failure, see Gibbs, , op. cit. p. 100Google Scholar, and Gibbs, , Street of Adventure (1909), ch. XVIII.Google Scholar

41 A large illustrated supplement on the Tribune was published in NBR, 13 Jan. 1906. The complaint is in Watson, A., A Newspaperman's Memories (1925), pp. 229–30.Google Scholar For further description, see Gibbs, P., Pageant of the Years (1946), p. 64,Google Scholar and his novel Street of Adventure, passim. In the novel S. J. Pryor is represented by Silas Bellamy, Randall Charlton by Christopher Codrington (for which Charlton threatened Gibbs with a libel suit), and Franklin Thomasson by Benjamin Harrison. For reservations about the accuracy of the novel, see Watson, E. H. Lacon, I Look BacK Sixty Years (1938), p. 159.Google Scholar

42 Howe, Ellic, Newspaper Printing in the Nineteenth Century (1943)Google Scholar, is still the best short account. See also Musson, A. E., ‘Newspaper Printing in the Industrial Revolution ’, Economic History Review (1957–1958), x, 411–26.Google Scholar For the Daily News, see McCarthy, J. and SirRobinson, J. R., The Daily News Jubilee (1896), p. 139 ff.Google Scholar For the Manchester Guardian, see Musson, , op. cit. p. 420.Google Scholar

43 Spender, , op. cit. II, 106.Google Scholar

44 Newspaper Owner (hereafter NO), 13 Jan. 1906; Journalist and Newspaper Proprietor (hereafter JNP), Jan. 1906. The Daily Mail was producing at the rate of 200,000 folded copies per hour in 1896: op. cit. p. 239.Google Scholar

45 NBR, 6 Jan. 1906.

46 ‘A New London Daily ’, loc. cit. pp. 175–8.

47 Pound, and Harmsworth, , op. cit. pp. 173rf.Google Scholar Also Viscount Camrose, , British Newspapers and Their Controllers (1947), p. 5.Google Scholar

48 NO, 13 Jan. 1906.

49 Camrose, , op. cit. pp. 4–6, where it is said that Royston Balch, advertising manager of a large paint firm, was the Tribune's ‘general manager ’, and that he was ‘the real power behind the throne ’. Balch's name does not appear in the staff list noted below, however (note 70), where S. A. Bartlett is given as Commercial Manager, and J. G. Sparkhill as Advertising Manager.Google Scholar

50 Tribune, 15 Jan. 1906.Google Scholar

51 Ibid. 21 Dec. 1906.

52 Tribune's advertising rates for 1906 appear in T. B. Browne's Advertiser's A.B.C. (1907), p. 366. Comparison with other papers is made difficult by the fact that they sold space in different ways. The following table is derived from the Advertiser's A.B.C. (1907). Some adjustments have been made to make comparison easier. The Times was still charging by the line at this stage, and the Daily Mirror would disclose its charges upon application only. Neither have, therefore, been included in the table.

53 NO, 22 Dec. 1906.

54 Tribune, 15 Jan. 1908.Google Scholar Cf. also NO, 18 Jan. 1908.

55 Gibbs, , Pageant of the Years, p. 66;Google ScholarArcher, C., William Archer (1931), p. 284;Google ScholarSteed, W., The Press (1938), pp. 83–4.Google Scholar

56 Morison, S., The English Newspaper 1622–1932 (1932), pp. 312–13;Google Scholar ‘The New London Daily ’, loc. cit. p. 178; NO, 13 Jan. 1906.

57 NO, 22 Feb. 1908.

58 JNP, Jan. 1906; Gibbs, , Adventures in Journalism, pp. 98–9;Google ScholarWatson, A., op. cit. pp. 219–20.Google Scholar

59 Printers'World, Jan. 1906, p. 15;Google ScholarGibbs, , Adventures in Journalism, p. 98.Google Scholar

60 NO, 20 Jan. 1906.

61 NO, 14 Jan. 1907.

62 Camrose, , op. cit. pp. 5—6.Google Scholar

63 Sell's World Press Guide (1907), pp. 111–12; Daily Chronicle, 1 June 1905.

64 Hill, W., Liberalism and Labour (1894)Google Scholar. His views were very similar to Thomasson's, see also his Socialism and Sense, with F. C. Gould (1895).

65 Camrose, , op. cit. pp. 4–6.Google Scholar

66 Gibbs, , Journalists London, p. 127.Google Scholar

67 Ibid. p. 127, and Pageant of the Years, p. 63. The two accounts do not tally exactly and must therefore be treated with some reservation.

68 Camrose, , op. cit. p. 5; JNP, June 1906, p. 7.Google Scholar

69 NO, 27 May 1905; Watson, A., op. cit. p. 230.Google Scholar

70 NO, 20 Jan. 1906. See NO, 27 Jan. 1906, for a complete list of the staff at that time.

71 Gibbs recalled that Hammond had a touch of lung trouble, and so selected an office in a draught, which kept his beard flying, and from which he protected his feet with straw, Pageant of the years, p. 64.

72 Ibid. p. 59.

73 Quoted in Archer, C., op. cit. p. 259Google Scholar. The Manchester Guardian leader writer C. E. Montague had applied for the job on 10 Dec. 1905, when it was feared that the Guardian might change hands, but he withdrew, Hammond, J. L., C. P. Scott (1934), pp. 92–3.Google Scholar

74 Caxton Magazine, 31 Sept. 1905.

75 JNP, Jan. 1906.

76 Tribune, 16 and 18 Jan. 1906.

77 Westminster Gazette, 31 May 1905. The word in brackets and the sentence quoted below were included in the version printed in the Manchester Guardian the following day: ‘a spirit of reason and free discussion to cooperate with the forces of Liberalism in widening the area of liberty, redistributing radically the economic burdens of Empire, and generally furthering the principles of social justice ’.

78 ‘The New London Daily ’, loc. cit.

79 Tribune, 15 Jan. 1906. Wealth Against Commonwealth was the title of a famous radical critique of American trusts by Henry Demarest Lloyd (1894).

80 Tribune, 26 Jan. 1906.

81 The Manchester Guardian, however, thought the time propitious, 16 Jan. 1906.

82 Shallard, S. D., The Future of Liberalism (1909), p. 71.Google Scholar Arthur Compton Rickett thought that the trouble with the paper was precisely that there was ‘no distinctive line in its policy ’, I Look Back (1933), p. 96.

83 Confessions of an Economic Heretic (1938), p. 82.

84 Manchester Guardian, 1 Feb. 1907.

85 NO, 7 Sept. 1907.

86 Letter from J. A. Hobson to J. L. Hammond, 19 Sept. 1907, J. L. Hammond Papers, Bodleian Library, 16 Fo. 63.

87 Gibbs, , Journalists London, p. 129.Google Scholar Sim was once editor of One and All.

88 Tribune, 29 Jan. 1908.

89 Ibid. 3 Feb. 1908.

90 Ibid. 15 Jan., 26 Feb. 1906. See also photographs in NBR, 13 Jan. 1906.

91 Tribune, 15 Jan. 1906.

92 Ibid. 26 Jan. 1906.

93 Ibid. 15 Jan. 1908.

94 No membership list survives.

95 Snell, H., Men, Movements and Myself (1936), pp. 174–5.Google Scholar

96 NO, 6 and 13 July 1907; Sell's World Press Guide (1908). Capital had been steadily increased over the past two years. In Apr. 1906, 150,008 shares had been allotted, amounting to,£5,633. By Jan. 1907, 250,004 had been taken up. Thomasson then held 74,900 management shares, and 25,000 ordinary shares. His mother held 100,000 ordinary shares. An American journalist James Davenport Whelpey had taken up 49,996 ordinary shares, and 50 of Thomasson's management shares. The remaining management shares were held by the new editor S. J. Pryor. S. A. Bartlett the manager, and Arthur Frederick Young, a private secretary, each held 1 ordinary share. Hill and Leslie had dropped out. At that time £1 had been called on all management shares, and on 125,008 ordinary shares, and 2s. on Whelpey's shares. This gave a total of £205,007 12s. od. called. In February another American, a ‘ gentleman ‘named Glover Colman Beckwith Ewell, took over another 49,996 shares, and an English ‘ gentleman ’, Frederick Samuel Philipson-Stow, 30,000 ordinary shares, and 20,000 of Thomasson's management shares. (Philipson-Stow was a founder of the South African De Beers Mining Company. He was made a baronet in 1907, and died in 1908.) The loss of the court case in July led Thomasson himself to advance a £10,000 mortgage to the paper, which was repaid in November, when the London and Westminster Bank came to the rescue with a £50,000 overdraft, with collateral debentures for £50,000. This was not paid off until Jan. 1909.

97 Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher (1934), II, 279.Google Scholar

98 NO, II Jan. 1908.

99 NO, 8 Feb. 1908; Manchester Guardian, II Jan. 1908.

100 Gibbs, , Journalists London, p. 131;Google ScholarAdventures in Journalism, p. 101.Google Scholar

101 Manchester Guardian, 22 Feb. 1908.

102 Mansfield, F. J., Gentlemen, The Press!(1943)Google Scholar

103 Armstrong, , op. cit. p. 74.Google Scholar His mother held the majority of shares at this time, see note 98 above.

104 Sell's World Press Guide (1908); JNP, Oct. 1908.

105 Quoted in JNP, Oct. 1908.

106 Lucy, H. W., Diaries of a Journalist, Later Entries (1923), p. 203.Google Scholar

107 Estimates of Thomasson's loss range from,£300,000 (the initial capital outlay), to £600,000. The latter estimate was given by the editor, S. J. Pryor to Wickham Steed, see Steed, op. cit. pp. 83—4, and Spectator, , 14 and 21 May 1943, pp. 454, 477.Google Scholar

108 The Manchester Guardian was of national status, of course.