''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

on 7 February 1865 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. Beginning late in 1868 and continuing at least through the 1880s, a selection or digest of its contents was published as the weekly '' Pall Mall Budget''.

History

''The Pall Mall Gazette'' took the name of a fictional newspaper conceived by W. M. Thackeray. Pall Mall is a street in London where many gentlemen's clubs are located, hence Thackeray's description of this imaginary newspaper in his novel '' The History of Pendennis'' (1848–1850):

We address ourselves to the higher circles of society: we care not to disown it—''The Pall Mall Gazette'' is written by gentlemen for gentlemen; its conductors speak to the classes in which they 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 of Smith, Elder & Co. from 1865 to 1880, with Frederick Greenwood as editor, ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was a Conservative newspaper. Greenwood resigned in 1880, when the paper's new owner (Smith's new son-in-law, Henry Thompson) wished for it to support the policies of the Liberal Party. Taking all the staff with him, Greenwood became the editor of the newly-founded '' St James's Gazette'' and maintained his advocacy of Conservative policy. The first editor under Thompson's ownership was John Morley (later Viscount Morley), with W. T. Stead as assistant editor. Morley resigned in 1883 to go into politics. Stead's editorship from 1883 to 1889 saw the paper cover such subjects as child prostitution; his campaign compelled the government to increase the age of consent from 13 to 16 in 1885. This was one of the first examples of investigative journalism, and Stead was arrested for "unlawful taking of a child" (when he purchased thirteen-year-old Eliza Armstrong from her mother for the meagre price of £5, to highlight how easy it was to buy children). The affair distressed Thompson, who dismissed Stead and hired the handsome society figure Henry Cust to replace him. Editor from 1892 to 1896, Cust returned the paper to its Conservative beginnings. Thompson sold the paper to William Waldorf Astor in 1896. Sir Douglas Straight was editor until 1909, followed by F. J. Higginbottom, under whom the paper declined. Circulation doubled between 1911–15 under the editor James Louis Garvin, but the paper declined once more under its last editor D. L. Sutherland. It was absorbed into The Evening Standard in 1923. Several well-known writers contributed to ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' over the years. George Bernard Shaw gained his first job in journalism writing for the paper. Other contributors have included Anthony Trollope,

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Whibley, Sir Spencer Walpole, Arthur Patchett Martin, and Jamaican-born writer Eneas Sweetland Dallas. '' The British Weekly'', "one of the most successful religious newspapers of its time", followed stylistically in the footsteps of the ''Pall Mall Gazette'', "including interviews of prominent personalities, use of line illustrations and photographs, special supplements, investigative reporting, sensationalist headlines, and serialised debates".

References in popular culture

Many works of fiction refer to ''The Pall Mall Gazette''. For example: * Consulting detective Sherlock Holmes places an advertisement in newspapers including ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', in " The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" (1892). * In Bram Stoker's epistolary novel '' Dracula'' (1897), the reader is presented with a ''Pall Mall Gazette'' article describing the escape of a wolf from the Zoological Gardens. * In H. G. Wells's '' The Time Machine'' (1895), the Time Traveller returns to London and sees that day's edition of ''The Pall Mall Gazette''. From its date he knows that he is home at his starting point in time. * In Wells's '' The War of the Worlds'' (1898), the narrator describes the "pre-Martian periodical called '' Punch''" as a prophecy. * In director Nicholas Meyer's first feature film '' Time After Time'' (1979), H. G. Wells (played by Malcolm McDowell) is a time traveler himself, 90 years in his future chasing Jack the Ripper (by David Warner) through the city of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in the year 1979. In a revolving restaurant, new female friend Amy (by Mary Steenburgen) states that Wells strikes her as the type that "never reads a newspaper". Wells replies, "I used to write for a newspaper, ''The Pall Mall Gazette''". *In the

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

vian novel ''Vienen los Chilenos'' (''The Chileans are Coming'') by Guillermo Thorndike (1978), Mr. Petrie, an English gentleman travelling to

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

during the 19th-century Saltpeter War, visits its Phoenix Club, where Englishmen and England-educated Peruvians meet and converse in English. In its library he selects ''The Times'', ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', and some American newspapers, and reads news of the attempted assassination of the Tsar, the famine in Ireland, the fighting between British and Afghan troops, and the cavalry attacks on the Sioux in the United States. *In Gabrielle D'annunzio's novel " The Pleasure" "The Pall Mall Gazette" is referred as the scandalous English newspaper.

Ownership

* George Smith (1865–1880) * Henry Yates Thompson (1880–1892) * William Waldorf Astor (1892–1917) * Henry Dalziel (1917–1923)Dalziel Buys the Pall Mall Gazette
", ''New York Times'', 5 January 1917

Editorship

References

External links

''Pall Mall Gazette''
— by John Simkin

1870–71
The W.T. Stead Resource SiteFrances Carruthers Gould & The Pall Mall Gazette – UK Parliament Living Heritage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pall Mall Gazette, The 19th-century publications London newspapers Defunct newspapers published in the United Kingdom Newspapers established in 1865 Publications disestablished in 1923 1865 establishments in England