110-587: Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (15 July 1865 – 14 August 1922), was a British newspaper and publishing magnate. As owner of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror , he was an early developer of popular journalism, and he exercised vast influence over British popular opinion during the Edwardian era . Lord Beaverbrook said he was "the greatest figure who ever strode down Fleet Street ." About
220-450: A coalition government (the other causal event was the resignation of Admiral Fisher as First Sea Lord ). Northcliffe's newspapers propagandized for creating a Minister of Munitions , which was held first by David Lloyd George , and helped to bring about Lloyd George's appointment as prime minister in 1916. Lloyd George offered Northcliffe a job in his cabinet, but Northcliffe refused and was instead appointed director for propaganda. Such
330-407: A different matter and concentrate on that.... Boyish the limited range of his intellect, which seldom concerns itself with anything but the immediate, the obvious, the popular. Boyish his irresponsibility, his disinclination to take himself or his publications seriously; his conviction that whatever benefits them is justifiable, and that it is not his business to consider the effect of their contents on
440-650: A green rectangle with the word "IRISH", instead of the Royal Arms , but this was later changed, with "Irish Daily Mail" displayed instead. The Irish version includes stories of Irish interest alongside content from the UK version. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Irish edition had a circulation of 63,511 for July 2007, falling to an average of 49,090 for the second half of 2009. Since 24 September 2006 Ireland on Sunday ,
550-547: A hardline against President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, taking the viewpoint that Britain was justified in invading Egypt to retake control of the Suez canal and topple Nasser. The Daily Mail was transformed by its editor during the 1970s and 1980s, David English . He had been editor of the Daily Sketch from 1969 to 1971, when it closed. Part of the same group from 1953, the Sketch
660-584: A leader on 21 June 1927 entitled "Hungary's Place in the Sun". In "Hungary's Place in the Sun", he approvingly noted that Hungary was dominated both politically and economically by its "chivalrous and warlike aristocracy", whom he noted in past centuries had battled the Ottoman Empire, leading him to conclude that all of Europe owned a profound debt to the Hungarian aristocracy which had been "Europe's bastion against which
770-614: A leader praised Mussolini as "the great figure of the age. Mussolini will probably dominate the history of the twentieth century as Napoleon dominated the early nineteen century". By 1929, George Ward Price was writing in the Mail that Baldwin should be deposed and Beaverbrook elected as leader. In early 1930, the two Lords launched the United Empire Party , which the Daily Mail supported enthusiastically. Like Lord Beaverbrook, Rothemere
880-433: A lust for power and for money, while leaving the accounting paperwork to his brother Harold. He imagined himself Napoleon reborn and resembled the emperor physically and in terms of his enormous energy and ambition. Above all, he had a boyish enthusiasm for everything. Norman Fyfe , an intimate friend, described him: Boyish in his power of concentration upon the matter of the moment, boyish in his readiness to turn swiftly to
990-431: A madman but historians say it was a physical malady. He went on a world tour to revive himself, but it failed to do so. He died of endocarditis in his London house, No. 1 Carlton House Gardens , on 14 August 1922. He left three months' pay to each of his six thousand employees. The viscountcy, barony, and baronetcy of Northcliffe became extinct. A monument to Northcliffe at St Dunstan-in-the-West , Fleet Street, London,
1100-596: A most genteel 'English' type". In the 1938 crisis over the Sudetenland, The Daily Mail was very hostile in its picture of President Edvard Beneš , whom Rothermere noted disapprovingly in a leader in July 1938 had signed an alliance with the Soviet Union in 1935, leading him to accuse Beneš of turning "Czechoslovakia into a corridor for Russia against Germany". Rothermere concluded his leader: "If Czechoslovakia becomes involved in
1210-551: A period of journalistic success in the 1980s, employing Fleet Street writers such as gossip columnist Nigel Dempster , Lynda Lee-Potter and sportswriter Ian Wooldridge (who unlike some of his colleagues – the paper generally did not support sporting boycotts of white-minority-ruled South Africa – strongly opposed apartheid ). In 1982 a Sunday title, the Mail on Sunday , was launched (the Scottish Sunday Mail , now owned by
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#17328478526211320-443: A publicity stunt to sell advertising and he refused to attend. But his wife exerted pressure upon him and he changed his view, becoming more supportive. By 1922 the editorial side of the paper was fully engaged in promoting the benefits of modern appliances and technology to free its female readers from the drudgery of housework. The Mail maintained the event until selling it to Media 10 in 2009. As Lord Northcliffe aged, his grip on
1430-554: A reality". Ward Price was one of the most controversial British journalists of the 1930s, who was one of the few British journalists allowed to interview both Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler because both fascist leaders knew that Ward Price could be trusted to take a favorable tone and ask "soft" questions. Wickham Steed called Ward Price "the lackey of Mussolini, Hitler and Rothermere". The British historian Daniel Stone called Ward Price's reporting from Berlin and Rome "a mixture of snobbery, name dropping and obsequious pro-fascism of
1540-660: A series of promotions in the paper which had run for years, following a campaign from the group ' Stop Funding Hate ', who were unhappy with the Mail' s coverage of migrant issues and the EU referendum. In September 2017, the Daily Mail partnered with Stage 29 Productions to launch DailyMailTV, an international news program produced by Stage 29 Productions in its studios based in New York City with satellite studios in London, Sydney, DC and Los Angeles. Dr. Phil McGraw (Stage 29 Productions)
1650-476: A time at 31 Pandora Road, West Hampstead; this site is now marked with an English Heritage blue plaque. Northcliffe was the subject of a number of fictionalized portrayals. One of the earliest was the character of Mr. Whelpdale in George Gissing 's 1891 novel New Grub Street . Whelpdale publishes a magazine called Chit-Chat (similar to Northcliffe's Answers ), which is aimed at "the quarter-educated; that
1760-717: A war, the British nation will say to the Prime Minister with one voice: 'Keep out of it!'" During the Danzig crisis , the Daily Mail was inadvertently used by the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to persuade Hitler that Britain would not go to war for the defense of Poland. Ribbentrop had the German Embassy in London headed by Herbert von Dirksen provide translations from pro-appeasement newspapers like
1870-728: Is listed on the London Stock Exchange . Circulation figures according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations in February 2020 show gross daily sales of 1,134,184 for the Daily Mail . According to a December 2004 survey, 53% of Daily Mail readers voted for the Conservative Party , compared to 21% for Labour and 17% for the Liberal Democrats . The main concern of Viscount Rothermere , the current chairman and main shareholder,
1980-509: Is no good trusting the old politicians. Accordingly, they have formed, as I should like to see our British youth form, a parliamentary party of their own...We can do nothing to check this movement [the Nazis], and I believe it would be a blunder for the British people to take up an attitude of hostility towards it." Starting in December 1931, Rothermere opened up talks with Oswald Mosley under which terms
2090-569: Is that the circulation be maintained. He testified before a House of Lords select committee that "we need to allow editors the freedom to edit", and therefore the newspaper's editor was free to decide editorial policy, including its political allegiance. On 17 November 2021, Ted Verity began a new seven-day role as editor of Mail newspapers, with responsibility for the Daily Mail , The Mail on Sunday and You magazine. The Daily Mail , devised by Alfred Harmsworth (later Viscount Northcliffe) and his brother Harold (later Viscount Rothermere),
2200-563: Is to say the great new generation that is being turned out by the Board Schools, the young men and women who can just read, but are incapable of sustained attention". Arnold Bennett 's 1909 West End play What the Public Wants centers on Sir Charles Worgan, a profit-hungry media baron based on Northcliffe. J. B. Fagan 's 1910 play The Earth features a satirical version of Northcliffe, Sir Felix Janion, who uses sexual blackmail to prevent
2310-842: The ABC1 demographic and 0.77 million in the C2DE demographic. Its website had more than 218 million unique visitors per month in 2020. The Daily Mail has won several awards, including receiving the National Newspaper of the Year award from The Press Awards nine times since 1994 (as of 2020 ). The Society of Editors selected it as the 'Daily Newspaper of the Year' for 2020. The Daily Mail has been criticised for its unreliability, its printing of sensationalist and inaccurate scare stories about science and medical research, and for instances of plagiarism and copyright infringement . In February 2017,
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#17328478526212420-551: The Daily Mail and the Daily Express for Hitler's benefit, which had the effect of making it seem that British public opinion was more strongly against going to war for Poland than was actually the case. The British historian Victor Rothwell wrote that the newspapers that Ribbentrop used to provide his press summaries for Hitler such as the Daily Express and the Daily Mail , were out of touch not only with British public opinion, but also with British government policy in regards to
2530-478: The Daily Mail as a means of dealing with Murdoch's offer. Dacre retired as editor of the Daily Mail but remains editor-in-chief of the group. In late 2013, the paper moved its London printing operation from the city's Docklands area to a new £50 million plant in Thurrock , Essex. There are Scottish editions of both the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday , with different articles and columnists. In August 2016,
2640-608: The Daily Mail as an unreliable newspaper, citing the statement published in the Daily Mail in July 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion that "every one of the Europeans was put to the sword in a most atrocious manner" as the Daily Mail maintained that the entire European community in Beijing had been massacred. A month later in August 1900 the Daily Mail published a story about the relief of
2750-568: The Daily Mail began a partnership with The People's Daily , the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party . This partnership included publishing articles in the MailOnline produced by The People's Daily. The agreement appeared to observers to give the paper an edge in publishing news stories sourced out of China, but it also led to questions of censorship regarding politically sensitive topics. In November 2016, Lego ended
2860-591: The Daily Mail began printing simultaneously in both Manchester and London, the first national newspaper to do so (in 1899, the Daily Mail had organised special trains to bring the London-printed papers north). The same production method was adopted in 1909 by the Daily Sketch , in 1927 by the Daily Express and eventually by virtually all the other national newspapers. Printing of the Scottish Daily Mail
2970-670: The Daily Mail in the years just before the First World War in which the newspaper displayed "a virulent anti-German sentiment" caused The Star to declare, "Next to the Kaiser, Lord Northcliffe has done more than any living man to bring about the war". His newspapers, especially The Times , reported the Shell Crisis of 1915 with such zeal that it helped to end the Liberal government of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith , which forced Asquith to form
3080-587: The Daily Mail ran a competition entitled "Why I Like The Blackshirts" under which it awarded one pound every week for the best letter from its readers explaining why they liked the BUF. The paper's support ended after violence at a BUF rally in Kensington Olympia in June 1934. Mosley and many others thought Rothermere had responded to pressure from Jewish businessmen who it was believed had threatened to stop advertising in
3190-482: The Daily Mail would support his party. The talks were drawn out largely because Mosley understood that Rothermere was a megalomaniac who wanted to use the New Party for his own purposes as he sought to impose terms and conditions in exchange for the support of the Daily Mail . Mosley, who was equally egoistical, wanted Rothermere's support, but only on his own terms. Rothermere's 1933 leader "Youth Triumphant" praised
3300-506: The Daily Mail wrote in support of Liz Truss in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election , calling her chancellor's mini-budget "a true Tory budget" that September. The Scottish Daily Mail was published as a separate title from Edinburgh starting in December 1946. The circulation was poor though, falling to below 100,000 and the operation was rebased to Manchester in December 1968. The Scottish Daily Mail
3410-749: The Daily Mail 's pro-German coverage of the Saarland referendum , under which the people of the Saarland had the choices of voting to remain under the rule of the League of Nations, join France, or rejoin Germany. In March 1935, impressed by the arguments put forward by Ribbentrop for the return of the former German colonies in Africa, Rothermere published a leader entitled "Germany Must Have Elbow Room". In his leader, Rothermere argued that
Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe - Misplaced Pages Continue
3520-666: The Edinburgh Daily Record . That same year he funded an expedition to Franz Joseph Land in the Arctic with the intention of making attempts to travel to the North Pole. On 4 May 1896 he began publishing the Daily Mail in London, which was a success, having the world record for daily circulation until Harmsworth's death; taglines of the Daily Mail included "the busy man's daily journal" and "the penny newspaper for one halfpenny". Prime Minister Robert Cecil , Lord Salisbury, said it
3630-550: The Educational Book Company published the Harmsworth Self-Educator , The Children's Encyclopædia , and Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia . He brought his younger brothers into his media empire, and they all flourished: Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere , Cecil Harmsworth, 1st Baron Harmsworth , Sir Leicester Harmsworth, 1st Baronet and Sir Hildebrand Harmsworth, 1st Baronet . Harmsworth
3740-458: The English Misplaced Pages banned the use of the Daily Mail as a reliable source. The Mail was originally a broadsheet but switched to a compact format on 3 May 1971, the 75th anniversary of its founding. On this date it also absorbed the Daily Sketch , which had been published as a tabloid by the same company. The publisher of the Mail , the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT),
3850-545: The Mirror Group , was founded in 1919 by the first Lord Rothermere, but later sold). Knighted in 1982, Sir David English became editor-in-chief and chairman of Associated Newspapers in 1992 after Rupert Murdoch had attempted to hire Evening Standard editor Paul Dacre as editor of The Times . The Evening Standard was then part of the Associated Newspapers group, and Dacre was appointed to succeed English at
3960-542: The Shell Crisis of 1915 . He directed a mission to the new ally, the United States, during 1917, and was director of enemy propaganda during 1918. His Amalgamated Press employed writers such as Arthur Mee and John Hammerton , and its subsidiary, the Educational Book Company, published The Harmsworth Self-Educator , The Children's Encyclopædia , and Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia . Challenging
4070-702: The Treaty of Versailles was too harsh towards the Reich and claimed that the German economy was being crippled by the loss of the German colonial empire in Africa as he argued that without African colonies to exploit that the German economic recovery from the Great Depression was fragile and shallow. During the Spanish Civil War , the Daily Mail ran a photo-essay on 27 July 1936 by Ferdinand Touchy entitled "The Red Carmens,
4180-561: The Conservative Party. The rise of the new party dominated the newspaper, and, even though Beaverbrook soon withdrew, Rothermere continued to campaign. Vice Admiral Ernest Augustus Taylor fought the first by-election for the United Empire Party in October, defeating the official Conservative candidate by 941 votes. Baldwin's position was now in doubt, but in 1931 Duff Cooper won the key by-election at St George's, Westminster , beating
4290-463: The Conservatives pulling out of the coalition, causing Lloyd George's downfall and with Britain backing down as the British agreed to pull their troops out of Turkey. Rothermere had a fundamentally elitist conception of politics, believing that the natural leaders of Britain were upper class men like himself, and he strongly disapproved of the decision to grant women the right to vote together with
4400-447: The Danzig crisis. The press summaries Ribbentrop provided were particularly important as Ribbentrop had managed to convince Hitler that the British government secretly controlled the British press, and just as in Germany, nothing appeared in the British press that the British government did not want to appear. On 5 May 1946, the Daily Mail celebrated its Golden Jubilee. Winston Churchill
4510-531: The Harmsworth Press. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith accused the paper of being disloyal to the country. When Kitchener died, the Mail reported it as a great stroke of luck for the British Empire. The paper was critical of Asquith's conduct of the war, and he resigned on 5 December 1916. His successor David Lloyd George asked Northcliffe to be in his cabinet, hoping it would prevent him from criticising
Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe - Misplaced Pages Continue
4620-560: The Headquarters, King's Road, Chelsea, London, S.W." The Spectator condemned Rothermere's article commenting that, "... the Blackshirts, like the Daily Mail , appeal to people unaccustomed to thinking. The average Daily Mail reader is a potential Blackshirt ready made. When Lord Rothermere tells his clientele to go and join the Fascists some of them pretty certainly will." In April 1934,
4730-668: The Irish Sunday newspaper acquired by Associated in 2001, was replaced by an Irish edition of the Mail on Sunday (the Irish Mail on Sunday ), to tie in with the weekday newspaper. Two foreign editions were begun in 1904 and 1905; the former titled the Overseas Daily Mail , covering the world, and the latter titled the Continental Daily Mail , covering Europe and North Africa. Sunday Dispatch The Sunday Dispatch
4840-660: The Liberals were too pusillanimous in their response to the Tirpitz plan. In 1906, the paper offered £10,000 for the first flight from London to Manchester , followed by a £1,000 prize for the first flight across the English Channel . Punch magazine thought the idea preposterous and offered £10,000 for the first flight to Mars , but by 1910 both the Mail ' s prizes had been won. The paper continued to award prizes for aviation sporadically until 1930. Virginia Woolf criticised
4950-399: The RAF. Rothermere and the Mail were also editorially sympathetic to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists . Rothermere wrote an article titled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" published in the Daily Mail on 15 January 1934, praising Mosley for his "sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine", and pointing out that: "Young men may join the British Union of Fascists by writing to
5060-472: The Spanish Republic, which had preached gender equality. For Touchy, women to fight in a war was to reject their femininity, leading him to label these women as monstrous as he accused the "Red Carmens" of "sexual depravity", writing with utter horror at the possibility of these women engaging in premarital sex, which for him marked the beginning of the end of "civilisation" itself. The British historian Caroline Brothers wrote that Touchy's article said much about
5170-466: The Turkish demand that the British leave their occupation zone with Churchill sending out telegrams asking for Canada, Australia and New Zealand to all send troops for the expected war. George Ward Price , the "extra-special correspondent" of The Daily Mail was sympathetic towards the beleaguered British garrison at Chanak, but was also sympathetic towards the Turks. Ward Price wrote in his articles that Mustafa Kemal did not have wider ambitions to restore
5280-426: The United Empire Party candidate, Sir Ernest Petter , supported by Rothermere, and this broke the political power of the press barons. In 1927, the celebrated picture of the year Morning by Dod Procter was bought by the Daily Mail for the Tate Gallery . In 1927, Rothermere, under the influence of his Hungarian mistress, Countess Stephanie von Hohenlohe , took up the cause of Hungary as his own, publishing
5390-445: The United Kingdom , dismissed the Daily Mail as "a newspaper produced by office boys for office boys." By 1902, at the end of the Boer Wars , the circulation was over a million, making it the largest in the world. With Harold running the business side of the operation and Alfred as editor, the Mail from the start adopted an imperialist political stance, taking a patriotic line in the Second Boer War , leading to claims that it
5500-428: The alleged dangers said to be posted by Chinese immigration to the United Kingdom. The "Yellow Peril" theme came to be abandoned because the Anglo-German naval race led to a more plausible threat to the British empire to be presented. In common with other Conservative papers, the Daily Mail used the Anglo-German naval race as a way of criticising the Liberal governments that were in power from 1906 onward, claiming that
5610-413: The beginning of the 20th century there were increasing attempts to develop popular journalism intended for the working class and tending to emphasize sensational topics. Harmsworth was the main innovator. He said, "News is something someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising." Lord Northcliffe had a powerful role during the First World War , especially by criticizing the government regarding
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#17328478526215720-403: The defeat of Ramsay MacDonald 's Labour Party in the 1924 general election , held four days later. Unlike most newspapers, the Mail quickly took up an interest on the new medium of radio. In 1928, the newspaper established an early example of an offshore radio station aboard a yacht, both as a means of self-promotion and as a way to break the BBC's monopoly. However, the project failed as
5830-409: The detention of political prisoners. Alongside his support for Nazi Germany as the "bulwark against Bolshevism", Rothermere used The Daily Mail as a forum to champion his pet cause, namely a stronger Royal Air Force (RAF). Rothermere had decided that aerial war was the technology of the future, and throughout the 1930s The Daily Mail was described as "obsessional" in pressing for more spending on
5940-519: The dominance in popularity of the " penny dreadfuls " among British children, from the 1890s Harmsworth half-penny periodicals, such as Illustrated Chips , would enjoy a virtual monopoly of comics in the UK until the emergence of DC Thomson comics in the 1930s. Born in Chapelizod , County Dublin, the son of Alfred and Geraldine Harmsworth , he was educated at Stamford School in Lincolnshire , England, from 1876 and at Henley House School in Kilburn, London from 1878. A master at Henley House who
6050-466: The editor of the Daily Sketch were fired due to a comment from Randolph Churchill that Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere , was "pornographer royal" for his ownership of both the Daily Sketch and Sunday Dispatch . Under its last editor, Walter Hayes , the Dispatch still maintained pre-printed posters with the headline "CHURCHILL IS DEAD", in preparation of the death of Randolph Churchill's father Winston Churchill . In December 1960,
6160-435: The end of the franchise requirements that disfranchised lower-class men. Feeling that British women and lower-class men were not really capable of understanding the issues, Rothermere started to lose faith in democracy. In October 1922, the Daily Mail approved of the Fascist " March on Rome " as the newspaper argued that democracy had failed in Italy, thus requiring Benito Mussolini to set up his Fascist dictatorship to save
6270-444: The equipment was not able to provide a decent signal from overboard, and the transmitter was replaced by a set of speakers. The yacht spent the summer entertaining beach-goers with gramophone records interspersed with publicity for the newspaper and its insurance fund. The Mail was also a frequent sponsor on continental commercial radio stations targeted towards Britain throughout the 1920s and 1930s and periodically voiced support for
6380-462: The forces of Mahomet [the Prophet Mohammed] vainly hurled themselves against". Rothemere argued that it was unjust that the "noble" Hungarians should be under the rule of "cruder and more barbaric races", by which he meant the peoples of Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. In his leader, he advocated that Hungary retake all of the lands lost under the Treaty of Trianon, which caused immediate concern in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Romania, where it
6490-411: The gender politics of The Daily Mail , which ran his photo-essay and presumably of The Daily Mail' s readers who were expected to approve of the article. In a 1937 article, George Ward Price , the special correspondent of The Daily Mail , approvingly wrote: "The sense of national unity-the Volkgemeinschaft -to which the Führer constantly appeals in his speeches is not a rhetorical invention, but
6600-456: The government. Northcliffe declined. According to Piers Brendon : Light-hearted stunts enlivened Northcliffe, such as the 'Hat campaign' in the winter of 1920. This was a contest with a prize of £100 for a new design of hat – a subject in which Northcliffe took a particular interest. There were 40,000 entries and the winner was a cross between a top hat and a bowler christened the Daily Mail Sandringham Hat . The paper subsequently promoted
6710-414: The king's remarks. In fact, Rothermere's "Justice for Hungary" campaign, which he continued until February 1939, was a source of disquiet for the Foreign Office, which complained that British relations with Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania were constantly stained as the leaders of those nations continued to harbor the belief that Rothermere was in some way speaking for the British government. One of
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#17328478526216820-408: The leader to warn that Churchill's efforts to call upon the Dominions for help for the expected war were endangering the unity of the British empire. Britain was governed by a Liberal-Conservative coalition, and the opposition of the Daily Mail , which normally supported the Conservatives, caused many Tories to reconsider continuing the coalition government of Lloyd George. The Chanek crisis ended with
6930-412: The legalisation of private radio, something that would not happen until 1973. From 1923, Lord Rothermere and the Daily Mail formed an alliance with the other great press baron, Lord Beaverbrook . Their opponent was the Conservative Party politician and leader Stanley Baldwin . Rothermere in a leader conceded that Fascist methods were "not suited to a country like our own", but qualified his remark with
7040-481: The lost frontiers of the Ottoman Empire and only wanted the Allies to leave Asia Minor. The Daily Mail ran a huge banner headline on 21 September 1922 that stated "Get Out Of Chanak!" In a leader (editorial), the Daily Mail wrote that the views of Churchill, who very much favored going to war with Turkey, were "bordering on insanity". The same leader noted that Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada had rejected Churchill's request for troops, which led
7150-512: The major themes of The Daily Mail was the opposition to the Indian independence movement and much of Rothermere's opposition to Baldwin was based upon the belief that Baldwin was not sufficiently opposed to Indian independence. In 1930, Rothermere wrote a series of leaders under the title "If We Lose India!", claiming that granting India independence would be the end of Britain as a great power. In addition, Rothermere predicted that Indian independence would end worldwide white supremacy as inevitably,
7260-432: The modern press. Developments he introduced or harnessed remain central: broad contents, exploitation of advertising revenue to subsidize prices, aggressive marketing, subordinate regional markets, independence from party control. According to Piers Brendon : The A. Harmsworth Glacier in North Greenland was named by Robert Peary in his honour. (Northcliffe had provided a ship for the expedition). Northcliffe lived for
7370-437: The morning newspaper circulation, 45% of the evening and 15% of the Sunday circulation in Britain. Northcliffe's ownership of The Times , the Daily Mail and other newspapers meant that his editorials influenced both "the classes and the masses". That meant that in an era before radio, television or internet, Northcliffe dominated the British press "as it never has been before or since by one man". Northcliffe's editorship of
7480-403: The new Nazi regime's accomplishments, and was subsequently used as propaganda by them. In it, Rothermere predicted that "The minor misdeeds of individual Nazis would be submerged by the immense benefits the new regime is already bestowing upon Germany". Journalist John Simpson , in a book on journalism, suggested that Rothermere was referring to the violence against Jews and Communists rather than
7590-606: The newspaper are usually made by a team led by the editor. Ted Verity succeeded Geordie Greig as editor on 17 November 2021. A survey in 2014 found the average age of its readers was 58, and it had the lowest demographic for 15- to 44-year-olds among the major British dailies . Uniquely for a British daily newspaper, women make up the majority (52–55%) of its readership. It had an average daily circulation of 1.13 million copies in February 2020. Between April 2019 and March 2020 it had an average daily readership of approximately 2.18 million, of whom approximately 1.41 million were in
7700-399: The newspaper supported the Italian occupation of Corfu and condemned the British government for at least rhetorically opposing the Italian attack on Greece. On 25 October 1924, the Daily Mail published the Zinoviev letter , which indicated Moscow was directing British Communists toward violent revolution. It was later proven to be a hoax. At the time many on the left blamed the letter for
7810-407: The paper appears on the MailOnline news website , although the website is managed separately and has its own editor. The paper is owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust . Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere , a great-grandson of one of the original co-founders, is the chairman and controlling shareholder of the Daily Mail and General Trust, while day-to-day editorial decisions for
7920-410: The paper if it continued to back an anti-Semitic party. The paper editorially continued to oppose the arrival of Jewish refugees escaping Germany, describing their arrival as "a problem to which the Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed." In December 1934, Rothermere visited Berlin as the guest of Joachim von Ribbentrop. During his visit, Rothermere was publicly thanked in a speech by Josef Goebbels for
8030-557: The paper slackened and there were periods when he was not involved. His physical and mental health declined rapidly in 1921, and he died in August 1922 at age 57. His brother Lord Rothermere took full control of the paper. In the Chanak Crisis of 1922, Britain almost went to war with Turkey. The Prime Minister David Lloyd George , supported by the War Secretary Winston Churchill , were determined to go to war over
8140-557: The passing of a bill which would provide a minimum wage for his employees. Throughout his newspaper career Northcliffe promoted the ideas which resulted in the Group Settlement Scheme . The scheme promised land in Western Australia to British settlers prepared to emigrate and develop the land. A town founded specifically to assist the new settlements was named Northcliffe , in recognition of Lord Northcliffe's promotion of
8250-687: The peoples of India as ignorant, barbarous, filthy and fanatical, arguing that the Raj was necessary to save India from the Indians, whom The Daily Mail argued were not capable of handling independence. Lord Rothermere was a friend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler , and directed the Mail's editorial stance towards them in the early 1930s. Lord Rothermere took an extreme anti-Communist line, which led him to own an estate in Hungary to which he might escape to in case Britain
8360-657: The peoples of the other British colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas would also demand independence. The decision of the Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to open the Round Table Conferences in 1930 was greeted by The Daily Mail as the beginning of the end of Britain as a great power. As part of its crusade against Indian independence, The Daily Mail published a series of articles portraying
8470-633: The public mind. In 1903 Harmsworth initiated the Harmsworth Cup , the first international award for motorboat racing. Harmsworth was a friend of Claude Johnson , chief executive of Rolls-Royce Limited , and during the years preceding the First World war became an enthusiast of the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost car. Lord Northcliffe's health declined during 1921 due mainly to a streptococcal infection . His mental health collapsed; he acted like
8580-506: The relentless acquisition of newspapers and perfection of their "copy," was the simple incorporation of millions of readers into his press empire. A. J. P. Taylor , however, says, "Northcliffe could destroy when he used the news properly. He could not step into the vacant place. He aspired to power instead of influence, and as a result forfeited both." P. P. Catterall and Colin Seymour-Ure conclude that: More than anyone [he] ... shaped
8690-414: The scheme. Daily Mail 2 Derry Street Defunct The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper published in London. It was founded in 1896. As of 2020 , it has the highest circulation of paid newspapers in the UK. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982, a Scottish edition was launched in 1947, and an Irish edition in 2006. Content from
8800-644: The social order. In 1923, Rothermere published a leader in The Daily Mail entitled "What Europe Owes Mussolini", where he wrote about his "profound admiration" for Mussolini, whom he praised for "in saving Italy he stopped the inroads of Bolshevism which would have left Europe in ruins...in my judgment he saved the entire Western world. It was because Mussolini overthrew Bolshevism in Italy that it collapsed in Hungary and ceased to gain adherents in Bavaria and Prussia". In 1923,
8910-521: The statement, "if our northern cities became Bolshevik we would need them". In an article in 1927 celebrating five years of Fascism in Italy, it was argued that there were parallels between modern Britain and Italy in the last years of the Liberal era as it was argued Italy had a series of weak liberal and conservative governments that made concessions to the Italian Socialist Party such as granting universal male suffrage in 1912 whose "only result
9020-568: The wearing of it but without much success. In 1919, Alcock and Brown made the first flight across the Atlantic, winning a prize of £10,000 from the Daily Mail . In 1930 the Mail made a great story of another aviation stunt, awarding another prize of £10,000 to Amy Johnson for making the first solo flight from England to Australia. The Daily Mail had begun the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1908. At first, Northcliffe had disdained this as
9130-520: The western Legations in Beijing, where the westerners in Beijing together with the thousands of Chinese Christians had been under siege by the Boxers. Before the outbreak of the First World War , the paper was accused of warmongering when it reported that Germany was planning to crush the British Empire . When war began, Northcliffe's call for conscription was seen by some as controversial, although he
9240-510: The women who burn churches". Touchy took a series of photographs of Spanish women who joined the Worker's Militia marching up to the front with rifles and ammunition pouches over their shoulders. In an essay that has been widely criticised as misogynistic, Touchy wrote: "The Spanish women has been a creature to admire or make work domestically, to marry or let slip away into a religious order...65 percent were illiterate". Touchy declared his horror at
9350-489: The world, Amalgamated Press . His half-penny periodicals published in the 1890s played a role in the decline of the Victorian penny dreadfuls . Harmsworth was an early developer of popular journalism. He bought several failing newspapers and made them into an enormously profitable news group, primarily by appealing to the general public. He began with The Evening News during 1894, and then merged two Edinburgh papers to form
9460-406: The young Spanish women had rejected the traditional patriarchal system, writing with disgust that the "direct action girls" of the Worker's Militia do not want to be like their mothers, submissive and obedient to men. Touchy called these young women "Red Carmens", associating them with the destructive heroine of the opera Carmen and with Communism, writing the "Red Carmens" proved the amorality of
9570-675: Was "written by office boys for office boys". Harmsworth then transformed a Sunday newspaper, the Weekly Dispatch , into the Sunday Dispatch , then the greatest circulation Sunday newspaper in Britain. He also initiated the Harmsworth Magazine (later London Magazine 1898–1915), utilizing one of Britain's best editors, Beckles Willson , who had been editor of many successful publications, including The Graphic . During 1899 Harmsworth
9680-554: Was Northcliffe's influence on anti-German propaganda during the World War I that a German warship was sent to shell his house, Elmwood, in Broadstairs , in an attempt to assassinate him. His former residence still bears a shell hole out of respect for his gardener's wife, who was killed in the attack. On 6 April 1919, Lloyd George made an excoriating attack on Harmsworth, terming his arrogance "diseased vanity". By then, Harmsworth's influence
9790-597: Was a prominent British newspaper , published between 27 September 1801 and 18 June 1961. It was ultimately discontinued due to its merger with the Sunday Express . The newspaper was first published as the Weekly Dispatch in 1801, and was owned in the mid-1800s by notable solicitor James Harmer , who served as a model for Jaggers, the Charles Dickens character from Great Expectations . The newspaper's name
9900-458: Was absorbed by its sister title, and English became editor of the Mail , a post in which he remained for more than 20 years. English transformed it from a struggling newspaper selling half as many copies as its mid-market rival, the Daily Express , to a formidable publication, whose circulation rose to surpass that of the Express by the mid-1980s. English was knighted in 1982. The paper enjoyed
10010-559: Was believed that his leader reflected British government policy. Additionally, he took up the cause of the Sudeten Germans, stating that the Sudetenland should go to Germany. The Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Edvard Beneš was so concerned that he visited London to meet King George V, a man who detested Rothermere and used language that was so crude, vulgar and "unkingy" that Beneš had to report to Prague that he could not possibly repeat
10120-400: Was born when Harmsworth was seventeen years old; the mother was a sixteen-year-old maidservant in his parents' home. Smith died during 1930, allegedly in a mental home. By 1900, Harmsworth had acquired a new mistress, an Irishwoman named Kathleen Wrohan, about whom little is known but her name; they had two further sons and a daughter, and she died in 1923. By 1914 Northcliffe controlled 40% of
10230-636: Was changed to the Sunday Dispatch in 1928. In 1903, the Newnes family sold the paper to Alfred and Harold Harmsworth . The new owners then turned it around from bankruptcy and into the biggest selling Sunday newspaper in Britain at the time. Due to editor Charles Eade 's role as Press Liaison officer for Lord Mountbatten during World War II , distribution of the Dispatch was up from 800,000 to over 2 million copies per edition in 1947. In 1959, Eade and
10340-502: Was conquered by the Soviet Union. Shortly after the Nazis scored their breakthrough in the Reichstag elections on 14 September 1930 , winning 107 seats, Rothermere went to Munich to interview Hitler. In an article published in Daily Mail on 24 September 1930, Rothemere wrote: "These young Germans have discovered, as I am glad to note that the young men and women of England are discovering, that
10450-655: Was created Viscount Northcliffe , of St Peter's in the County of Kent, for his service as the director of the British war mission in the United States. Alfred Harmsworth married Mary Elizabeth Milner on 11 April 1888. She was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) and Dame of Grace, Order of St John (D.St.J) during 1918. They did not have any children together. Lord Northcliffe had four acknowledged children by two different women. The first, Alfred Benjamin Smith,
10560-556: Was created a Baronet , of Elmwood, in the parish of St Peters in the County of Kent in 1904. In 1905, Harmsworth was raised to the peerage as Baron Northcliffe , of the Isle of Thanet in the County of Kent . The peerage was requested by King Edward VII , and was alleged to have been purchased. It remains a matter of speculation. He is reported to have joked that when he wanted a peerage he would buy one, "like an honest man." In 1918, Harmsworth
10670-465: Was decreasing. Northcliffe's enemies accused him of power without responsibility, but his papers were a factor in settling the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, and his mission to the United States, from June through to October 1917, has been judged successful by historians. Northcliffe's personality shaped his career. He was monolingual and not well-educated and knew little history or science. He had
10780-462: Was first published on 4 May 1896. It was an immediate success. It cost a halfpenny at a time when other London dailies cost one penny, and was more populist in tone and more concise in its coverage than its rivals. The planned issue was 100,000 copies, but the print run on the first day was 397,215, and additional printing facilities had to be acquired to sustain a circulation that rose to 500,000 in 1899. Lord Salisbury , 19th-century Prime Minister of
10890-401: Was later assisted by his brother Harold , who was adept in business matters. Harmsworth had an intuitive sense for what the reading public wanted to buy, and began a series of cheap but successful periodicals, such as Comic Cuts (tagline: "Amusing without being Vulgar") and the journal Forget-Me-Not for women. From these periodicals, he developed the largest periodical publishing company in
11000-462: Was named as executive producer. The program was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment News Program in 2018. In May 2020, the Daily Mail ended The Sun's 42-year reign as the United Kingdom's highest-circulation newspaper. The Daily Mail recorded average daily sales of 980,000 copies, with the Mail on Sunday recording weekly sales of 878,000. In August 2022,
11110-467: Was not reporting the issues of the day objectively. The Mail also set out to entertain its readers with human interest stories, serials, features and competitions. It was the first newspaper to recognise the potential market of the female reader with a women's interest section and hired one of the first female war correspondents Sarah Wilson who reported during the Second Boer War. In 1900,
11220-405: Was outraged by Baldwin's centre-right style of Conservatism and his decision to respond to almost universal suffrage by expanding the appeal of the Conservative Party. Far from seeing giving women the right to vote as the disaster Rothermere believed that it was, Baldwin set out to appeal to female voters, a tactic that was politically successful, but led Rothermere to accuse Baldwing of "feminising"
11330-459: Was relaunched in 1995; it is printed in Glasgow. It had an average circulation of 67,900 in the area of Scotland in December 2019. The Daily Mail officially entered the Irish market with the launch of a local version of the paper on 6 February 2006; free copies of the paper were distributed on that day in some locations to publicise the launch. Its masthead differed from that of UK versions by having
11440-552: Was responsible for the unprecedented success of a charitable appeal for the dependents of soldiers fighting in the South African War by inviting Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Sullivan to write the song " The Absent-Minded Beggar ". Harmsworth also initiated The Daily Mirror during 1903, and rescued the financially desperate The Observer and The Times during 1905 and 1908, respectively. During 1908, he also acquired The Sunday Times . The Amalgamated Press subsidiary
11550-505: Was switched from Edinburgh to the Deansgate plant in Manchester in 1968 and, for a while, The People was also printed on the Mail presses in Deansgate. In 1987, printing at Deansgate ended, and the northern editions were thereafter printed at other Associated Newspapers plants. For a time in the early 20th century, the paper championed vigorously against the " Yellow Peril ", warning of
11660-476: Was the chief guest at the banquet and toasted it with a speech. Newsprint rationing in the Second World War had forced the Daily Mail to cut its size to four pages, but the size gradually increased through the 1950s. In 1947, when the Raj ended, the Daily Mail featured a banner headline reading "India: 11 words mark the end of an empire". During the Suez crisis of 1956, the Daily Mail consistently took
11770-610: Was to hasten the arrival of disorder". In the same article, Baldwin was compared to the Italian prime ministers of the Liberal era as the article argued that the General Strike of 1926 should never have been allowed to occur and the Baldwin government was condemned "for the feebleness which it tries to placate opposition by being more Socialist than the Socialists". In 1928, the Daily Mail in
11880-521: Was to prove important to his future was J. V. Milne, the father of A. A. Milne , who according to H. G. Wells was at school with him at the time and encouraged Harmsworth to start the school magazine. In 1880 he first visited the Sylvan Debating Club , founded by his father, and of which he later served as Treasurer. Beginning as a freelance journalist, he initiated his first newspaper, Answers (original title: Answers to Correspondents ), and
11990-539: Was unveiled in 1930. The obelisk was designed by Edwin Lutyens and the bronze bust is by Kathleen Scott . His body was buried at East Finchley Cemetery in North London. Historian Ian Christopher Fletcher states: Northcliffe's drive for success and respectability found its main outlet in the commercial world of journalism, not the political world the parties and parliaments. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment, underlying
12100-451: Was vindicated when conscription was introduced in 1916. On 21 May 1915, Northcliffe criticised Lord Kitchener , the Secretary of State for War , regarding weapons and munitions. Kitchener was considered by some to be a national hero. The paper's circulation dropped from 1,386,000 to 238,000. Fifteen hundred members of the London Stock Exchange burned unsold copies and called for a boycott of
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