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GB 133 GDN The Guardian (Manchester Guardian) Archive Dates of Creation: 1821-1986 Administrative history The Manchester Guardian was founded by John Edward Taylor (1791-1844) in 1821, two years after the Peterloo Massacre. Taylor was a successful Manchester cotton merchant, who wanted a newspaper to promote political reform. He was supported in this venture by a number of Manchester commercial men, who shared Taylor's moderate liberal opinions. Originally a weekly, the first issue of the paper appeared on 5 May 1821, and included international and national as well as local news. By the 1830s the Manchester Guardian had become the best-selling newspaper in Manchester; in 1836 it was published twice-weekly, and in 1855 it became a daily. The Manchester Guardian was a strongly dynastic paper, being in the hands of the Taylor and Scott families continuously until the mid-twentieth century. The two families had been connected since Taylor's marriage to Sophia Scott in 1817. In 1844, after Taylor’s death, his brother-in-law, Russell Scott took over the running of the paper until Taylor's sons, Russell Scott Taylor and Edward Taylor came of age. Russell Scott was the father of the Charles Prestwich Scott (1846-1932), probably the most significant figure in the history of the newspaper. It was C.P. Scott, appointed editor in 1872, who transformed the paper from an essentially provincial journal into a newspaper of national and international standing. Scott pioneered a style of journalism that was both accessible and highly principled. Politically, he pursued a consistently left-of-centre editorial stance during his fifty-seven years in the post, even in the face of public hostility. He championed Irish Home Rule, condemned the excesses of imperialism, and criticised British policy in South Africa immediately before and during the Boer War. Scott's journalistic achievement was, in the words of Lord Robert Cecil, "making righteousness readable". Scott recruited a gifted set of journalists to the paper, mostly directly from Oxbridge, including C. E. Montague, L. T. Hobhouse, W. T. Arnold, and Allan Monkhouse. They made major contributions to the paper's reputation for its coverage of national affairs, particularly politics and the arts. In 1904, Scott bought the Manchester Guardian from the Taylor family at an inflated price, and thereafter ran it as owner- editor. Following Scott's retirement in 1929, his son, Edward, was appointed as editor. He died suddenly following a boating accident in April 1932, and was succeeded by W. P. Crozier. In 1936 ownership of the paper was transferred to the Scott Trust in order to protect the paper’s journalistic independence. A P Wadsworth took over as editor in 1944, and in turn was succeeded by H. A. Hetherington in 1956, who remained in post until 1975. The Manchester Guardian’s liberal outlook continued under these editors, although formal support for the Liberal party gradually waned. On 24 August 1959 the title of the newspaper changed to the Guardian to reflect its national distribution and news coverage, and in 1970 the main editorial offices and production facilities moved to London. 1 The newspaper and its archive are a major source for studies of the political, military, economic, social and technological developments of the 20th century. Immediate Source of acquisition The bulk of the archive was donated to JRUL by the Guardian in 1971; there have been several subsequent accessions. Accruals This is a non-accruing archive. Scope and content The archive consists of two main elements: the records of the newspaper as a business; and a very extensive collection of editorial correspondence and despatches from reporters. Records date from the foundation of the paper in 1821 and continue until the editorship of Hetherington into the mid-1970s. The archive is strongest for the period from the 1890s to the 1960s. Comparatively few records from the pre-C.P. Scott era have survived. There is a particularly fine set of records relating to the Guardian as a business concern; this includes partnership contracts and legal documents relating to the foundation and subsequent ownership of the paper, including the original agreement between John Taylor senior, and a group of Manchester merchants and gentlemen for the financing of the launch of the paper in 1821, as well as leases of properties (1887- 1960s), and papers relating to libel actions. Financial records include ledger books for the period 1821-1823, 1828-1834, 1839-1900, and cash books for 1827-1828, 1830-1832, 1838-1841 and 1845-1848. There is also a wide range of more recent financial records including balance sheets and financial correspondence. There are circulation and distribution records, including detailed sets of statistics, and files relating to circulation figures. There is an important body of records relating to the production of the newspaper, containing information on developments in printing technology, changes of premises, working conditions, wage rates and trade union employment agreements. Payment books detail the employment conditions of machinists, electricians, cleaners, cooks, and other ancillary workers. There are a number of photographs depicting staff, working premises and equipment (GDN/317) although photographs produced for publication in the newspaper are not part of this archive. The general series also includes material on the Guardian’s Manchester headquarters in Cross Street and later, Deansgate. Records exist for the activities of journalistic staff, including payment records, reporters' diaries (these are appointments diaries and contain no reportage etc.) and listings of books reviewed. The payment ledgers which record payments to contributors (GDN 229-235, 338/1-12a) are a useful means of identifying authorship of articles (which were normally published anonymously). 2 The archive includes a number of records relating to the Guardian’s sister paper, the Manchester Evening News. The correspondence and despatches are a source of immense importance for studies of almost every aspect of the late 19th and 20th centuries. The period of Scott’s editorship (1872-1929) is represented by two classes of correspondence. There are nearly 4,400 personal letters to and from Scott, exchanged with some 1,100 individuals (GDN 118-132, 334-338). The general correspondence includes separate series for J.E. Taylor (GDN 129-130), G.B. Dibblee, a manager at the Manchester Guardian (GDN 131) and the academic and journalist, L.T. Hobhouse (GDN 132). The second class comprises editorial correspondence, numbering 13,000 items from over 1,300 persons (the so-called “A” series). Scott’s correspondence reveals his close personal and political contacts with many of the leading statesmen and politicians of his time, such as Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Lord Haldane, Lord Grey of Fallodon, Ramsay MacDonald, Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Beveridge, Sir Samuel Hoare and Leslie Hore-Belisha. His interest in causes such as women’s suffrage, Irish nationalism and the establishment of a Jewish homeland is illuminated in correspondence with the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, the subsequent Irish rebel Sir Roger Casement, and the Zionists Chaim Weizmann and Sir Lewis Namier. Leading literary figures also feature in the correspondence, such as George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, John Masefield and Arthur Ransome. Reactions to Scott’s stance on the Boer War can be traced in an interesting collection of correspondence (GDN 324/7). There is also a small group of letters from Lord Fisher of Kilverstone to Scott and Sir Maurice Hankey (GDN 223/54). The archive includes a collection of Scott’s leading articles and other journalistic writings (GDN 75-78a). There are also typescript copies of Scott’s political diaries covering 1911- 1928 (GDN 133-134) [published as The political diaries of C.P. Scott 1911-1928, ed. by Trevor Wilson (London: Collins 1970)]. In the post-Scott era, the correspondence of W.P. Crozier (1932-1944) is particularly rich in material relating to European politics, Zionism and the Second World War. Most of this material can be found in the “ B” series of editorial correspondence, but there is also very significant material in the so-called “foreign correspondence” series covering the years 1912- 1939 (GDN 204-221). In addition, a series of Crozier’s “confidential” correspondence and papers relating to Palestine and Zionism contains much of value on these topics (GDN 145/30-44). There are also discrete series of correspondence of the former Guardian correspondent and Labour politician, Morgan Philips Price (GDN 338/2), and another former journalist and foreign policy scholar, David Mitrany (GDN 338/1). Correspondence of the paper’s London editor, James Bone, forms a separate series (GDN 222), and this includes letters from the novelist, Arnold Bennett. The editorial correspondence of Alfred Powell Wadsworth (1944-56) can be found in the “B” series, and there is some additional correspondence in GDN 149. The “C” series comprises the correspondence and other papers of Wadsworth’s successor, Alastair Hetherington (1956-75). Labour politicians figure prominently in both series, and include George Brown, James Callaghan, Richard Crossman, Hugh Gaitskell, 3 Roy Jenkins and Harold Wilson, while Jo Grimond represents the Liberals. Hetherington’s papers include a collection of very interesting interview transcripts from these and other politicians dating mainly from the 1960s. Among the prominent Guardian staff

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