ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output The influence of Congregationalism on the New Jour- nalism of W. T. Stead, 1870-1901 https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40416/ Version: Full Version Citation: March, Philip (2019) The influence of Congregationalism on the New Journalism of W. T. Stead, 1870-1901. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email 1 Birkbeck, University of London The Influence of Congregationalism on the New Journalism of W. T. Stead, 1870–1901 Philip March Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2019 2 Declaration I, Philip March, declare that this thesis is all my own work. Signed ____________________________________ Date_________________________ 3 Abstract This thesis examines the influence of Congregationalism on the New Journalism of W. T. Stead (1849–1912) between 1870 and 1901. It explores how Nonconformity helped to shape the development of Stead’s journalism as it evolved into the press practices of the New Journalism decried by defenders of an elitist cultural heritage that included the leading social critic, Matthew Arnold. Chapter 1 examines the emergence of New Journalism as concept and term. It recalibrates the date of the expression’s first usage and explores the way in which its practices evolved from a range of earlier press influences. Chapter 2 positions Stead as a public intellectual and explores the ways in which he represented the role of the editor and the press. The chapter further examines the influence of evangelicalism and the Nonconformist Conscience on Stead’s developing New Journalism and discusses the place of his manifesto papers in his theorising on the powers of the press. Chapter 3 focuses on Stead’s time as editor at the Northern Echo (1871– 1880) during which he developed the paper into a prominent, campaigning, Liberal-party supporting, regional newspaper. Chapter 4 examines the period during which Stead was assistant editor (1880–1883) and then editor (1883–1889) of the London Pall Mall Gazette when he was a leading activist for social reform. The chapter examines Stead’s use of sensationalism and homiletic novel writing by which he sought to engage his readers in the moral questions raised by pressing issues for democratic and social change. Chapter 5 concentrates on Stead’s establishment of the Review of Reviews as a leading journal for the dissemination of culturally improving and spiritually enlightening materials. In particular, the chapter explores Stead’s use of supplementary publications to promote Christian reunification at home and abroad, British imperial interests, and the federation of the English-speaking peoples. 4 Table of Contents Abstract p. 3 Table of Contents p. 4 Acknowledgements p. 5 Introduction p. 6 Chapter 1: Framing the New Journalism p. 30 Chapter 2: Uncrowned Kings and Typocrats p. 64 Chapter 3: The Northern Echo Years (1871–1880) p. 101 Chapter 4: The Pall Mall Years (1880–1889) p. 138 Chapter 5: The Review of Reviews p. 174 Conclusion p. 212 Bibliography p. 219 5 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr Carolyn Burdett, for her unfailing support and encouragement during the writing of this thesis. Dr Burdett has been an exemplary supervisor, combining the values of vocation and profession with dedication and expert knowledge. I am grateful to Dr David Wykes, the Director of the Dr Williams’s Library, and his staff for their general support and interest in my work, with particular thanks to Dr Alan Argent (Research Fellow) and Jane Giscombe (Conservator) for their friendship and encouragement. I am grateful to Carl Plasa for his abiding and discreet belief in my long-held ambition to undertake doctoral research. I thank my English, French, and Irish family members for their kind support. I owe profound gratitude to my wife, Dominique Erdinger-March, whose patience and encouragement have been most welcome companions throughout. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Irene Gregory, and of my father, Herman Leslie Marchinski. 6 The Influence of Congregationalism on the New Journalism of W. T. Stead, 1870–1901. Introduction This thesis is the first in-depth study of the influence of evangelical Congregationalism on the New Journalism of William Thomas Stead (1849–1912). A leading promoter of the Nonconformist Conscience and of Gladstonian Liberalism, he was, for almost twenty years, a strong advocate for Protestant Dissent, firstly in the north-east of England, while at the Darlington Northern Echo (1871–1880), and, secondly, in London, at the Pall Mall Gazette (1880– 1889). As the founding owner and editor of the monthly Review of Reviews, (1890–1912), Stead later became a resolute campaigner for Christian reunion, an advocate for the federation of the English-speaking peoples, a forceful supporter of British imperial interests, and a determined activist for Spiritualism.1 Since the abolition of the taxes on knowledge (1853, 1855, and 1861), the power of print, and particularly the power of the printed newspaper, had increased substantially. New Journalism introduced commercial, technological, and typographical innovations designed to respond to the emergence of new readerships created by improved educational provision (W. E. Forster’s Education Act of 1870) and electoral extension (Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884).2 Journalism sought to educate, to entertain, and to represent. The model of the press, platform, and pulpit, associated print and speech, and suggested a style of writing capable of attracting mass readerships through a more personal journalism. Stead’s life and work represented this paradigm through the pulpit of Dissent, the platform of Liberal-party politics, and a press at liberty to employ, for the betterment of society, the sensationalism of national newspaper campaigns and the rhetoric of religious revivalism.3 He was as ambitious for the reach of his own ‘voice’ as he was for his capacity to act as a conduit for modern social and political debate which he sought to establish through the re-publication, dissemination, and archiving of a mass of news, opinion, and information. In exploring Stead’s contribution to evolving press practices, this thesis puts forward new narratives for the emergence of the phrase ‘New Journalism’ and the ideas that it connoted, and, by suggesting a much earlier date than has until now been considered appropriate, rectifies 1 Although this thesis does not examine Stead’s work at the Review of Reviews beyond 1901, he continued editing the journal until his loss aboard the Titanic in 1912. The Review of Reviews ceased publication in 1936. 2 Duties on advertising, newspapers, and paper were repealed, respectively, in 1853, 1855, and 1861. Aled Jones, Powers of the Press: Newspapers, Power and the Public in Nineteenth-Century England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996), p. 10. 3 Aled Jones discusses the creation and influence of the ‘platform, press, pulpit’ paradigm, pp. 88–89. 7 the historical record for the appearance of the phrase Nonconformist Conscience. Further, I argue for an ‘evangelical aesthetic’ that links the impact of sensationalism, the plainspokenness of Nonconformist rhetoric, and the physicality of evangelical conversion experience. This exploration has involved bringing together, and bringing to bear, a combination of materials drawn from periodical, historical, religious, and literary perspectives. I position Stead not so much as a leader of newspaper cultural innovation than as an inspired and able exponent of ideas that others wished to bring to the attention of both elite groups and the wider public. This was evident in Stead’s promotion of Andrew Mearns’s Nonconformist campaign for better housing, as set out in the pamphlet The Bitter Cry of Outcast London (1883), in the ‘Maiden Tribute’ crusade, originated by Josephine Butler and the Salvation Army (1885), in plans for national social regeneration, as seen in the Salvation Army’s scheme In Darkest England and the Way Out (1890), in Christian regeneration and reunion, and in proposals for the federation of the English-speaking peoples, as suggested, for example, by the ambitions of the South-African politician and diamond-industrialist, Cecil John Rhodes.4 Stead yearned to head a successful campaigning newspaper, a desire which resounds in his sometimes soulfully expressed ambition to conduct the Salvation Army’s War Cry (1879– ).5 Moreover, he would have been fully aware of the success of the Methodist Times (1885–1937), founded and edited by the Wesleyan minister Hugh Price Hughes, who aimed, through his newspaper, to engage Christian principles in the practical resolution of social problems.6 Stead was a complex individual. He was a committed Nonconformist, an advocate for ecumenical Christianity, a Spiritualist, and, I suggest, an exponent of Christian Socialism. He was a supporter, albeit critical, of Gladstonian Liberalism, an anti-Jingoist imperialist, and a world peace campaigner. He followed the curve in major aspects of his campaigning newspaper career, but he did so in a way that brought the Christian values of Nonconformity to bear upon, and to act from within, a secular press. Following the curve and being an ineffectual bystander are not, of course, identical: Stead followed in order to utilise, improve, and amplify. His success lay in the promotion of the press as a place for national debate and decision-making: his originality 4 Andrew Mearns, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London (London: James Clarke, 1883); the ‘Maiden Tribute’ campaign ran in the Pall Mall Gazette from 6 July to 10 July 1885; William Booth, In Darkest England and the Way Out (London: Salvation Army, 1890); Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, ‘Rhodes, Cecil John (1853– 1902)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, <doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/35731>.