Pall Mall Gazette

The "Pall Mall Gazette" was an evening newspaper founded in London on February 7 1865. It was owned by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921 "The Globe" merged into the "Pall Mall Gazette", which itself was absorbed into the "Evening Standard" in 1923.

The "Pall Mall Gazette" takes the name of an imaginary newspaper conceived by William Makepeace Thackeray. Pall Mall is a street in London home to many gentleman's clubs, hence Thackeray's description of his imaginary newspaper in his novel "The History of Pendennis":

We address ourselves to the higher circles ofsociety: we care not to disown it--the Pall Mall Gazette is written bygentlemen for gentlemen; its conductors speak to the classes in whichthey live and were born. The field-preacher has his journal, the radical free-thinker has his journal: why should the Gentlemen of England be unrepresented in the Press?

Under the ownership of George Smith from 1865 to 1880, with Frederick Greenwood as editor, the Pall Mall Gazette was a Conservative newspaper. Greenwood resigned in 1880 when the paper came under new ownership who wished the paper to support Liberal policies.

William Thomas Stead's editorship from 1883 to 1889 saw the paper cover such subjects as child prostitution, their campaign helped get the government to increase the age of consent from 13 to 16 in 1885.

Henry Cust, editor from 1892 to 1896, returned the paper to its Conservative beginnings.

A large number of well-known writers contributed to the "Pall Mall Gazette" over the years, for example George Bernard Shaw got his first journalistic job writing for the paper. Other contributors included Anthony Trollope, Frederick Engels, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Spencer Walpole, Arthur Patchett Martin [ [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A050247b.htm Martin, Arthur Patchett (1851 - 1902) at the Australian Dictionary of Biography] ] and the Jamaican-born popular (but now forgotten) writer E. S. Dallas.

The "Pall Mall Gazette" is referred to several times in Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective stories about Sherlock Holmes. Doyle was an ardent realist, constantly making references to Victorian popular society; Watson would often enter the home of Sherlock to disturb him reading a copy of the "Pall Mall Gazette".

The "Pall Mall Gazette" is referred to in HG Wells' The Time Machine. When the Time Traveler returns back to London he sees that day's copy of the Pall Mall Gazette and knows he is back at the original day he departed.

Owners and editors of the "Pall Mall Gazette"

*Owner: George Smith
**1865-1880 Frederick Greenwood
*Owner:
**1880-1883 John Morley
**1883-1889 William Thomas Stead
**1890-1892 Edward Tyas Cook
*Owner: William Waldorf Astor
**1892-1896 Henry Cust
**1896-1909 Douglas Straight [ [http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/xphrase.pl?keyword=Douglas+Straight Douglas Straight at Probert encyclopaedia] ]
**1908/9-1912 Frederick James Higginbottom
**1912-1915 James Louis Garvin
*Owner: Cyril Arthur Pearson, from 1916 to 1923 [ [http://www.ketupa.net/astors.htm The Astors media dynasty] ]

ee also

*List of newspapers in the United Kingdom
*Eneas Sweetland Dallas

References

*John Scott (1950), "The Story of the Pall Mall Gazette, of its first editor Frederick Greenwood and of its Founder George Murray Smith"
*Raymond Schultz (1972), "Crusader in Babylon: WT Stead and the Pall Mall Gazette "

External links

* [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jpall.htm "Pall Mall Gazette"]
* [http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/ The W.T. Stead Resource Site]
* [http://www.thepeerage.com/e127.htm William Waldorf Astor entry] in [http://www.thepeerage.com/ thePeerage.com]