William Thomas Stead

**William Thomas Stead** was a First Class passenger of the *Titanic*.

He was a British writer, journalist, esperantist and and a pioneer of investigative journalism, known for being one of the most controversial figures of the Victorian era. He became an enthusiastic supporter of the peace movement, publishing many articles advocating for peace. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize multiple times. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns whilst editor of *The Pall Mall Gazette*, and he is best known for his 1885 series of articles, *The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon*, written in support of a bill to raise the age of consent from 13 to 16, dubbed the "Stead Act". Stead's 'new journalism' paved the way for the modern |tabloid in Great Britain. He was influential in demonstrating how the press could be used to influence public opinion and government policy, and advocated "government by journalism". He was also well known for his reportage on child welfare, social legislation and reformation of England's criminal codes.

When Stead died on the RMS *Titanic* when it sank in April 1912, he was the most famous Englishman on board.

## Early life

He was born in 5 July 1849 in Embleton, Northumberland, the son of a Congregational minister, the Rev William Stead and Isabella (née Jobson), a cultivated daughter of a Yorkshire farmer. A year later the family moved to Howdon on the River Tyne. Stead was largely educated at home by his father, and by the age of five he was already well-versed in the Holy Scriptures and is said to have been able to read Latin almost as well as he could read English. It was Stead's mother who perhaps had the most lasting influence on her son's career. One of Stead's favourite childhood memories was of his mother leading a local campaign against the government's controversial Contagious Diseases Acts — which required prostitutes living in garrison towns to undergo medical examination.

In 1862 he attended Silcoates School in Wakefield, but in 1864 he was apprenticed to a merchant's office on the Quayside in Newcastle upon Tyne where he became a clerk.

## *The Northern Echo*

From 1870 Stead contributed articles to the fledgling liberal Darlington newspaper *The Northern Echo*, and in 1871 despite his inexperience, was made the editor of the newspaper. At the time, Stead at just 22, was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. Stead used Darlington's excellent railway connections to his advantage, increasing the newspaper's distribution to national levels. Stead was always guided by a moral mission, influenced by his faith, and wrote to a friend that the position would be "a glorious opportunity of attacking the devil".

In 1873 he married his childhood sweetheart, Emma Lucy Wilson, the daughter of a local merchant and shipowner; she would eventually bear him six children. In 1876 Stead joined a campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Act, befriending the feminist Josephine Butler. The law was repealed in 1886. He gained notoriety in 1876 for his coverage of the Bulgarian atrocities agitation. He is also credited as "a major factor" in helping Gladstone to win an overwhelming majority in the 1880 general election.

## *Pall Mall Gazette*

In 1880 Stead went to London to be assistant editor of the Liberal *Pall Mall Gazette* (a forerunner of the *London Evening Standard*), where he set about revolutionizing a traditionally conservative newspaper "written by gentlemen for gentlemen." When its editor John Morley was elected to Parliament, Stead took over the role (1883–1889). When Morley was made Secretary of State for Ireland, Gladstone asked the new cabinet minister if he was confident that he could deal with that most distressful country. Morley replied that, if he could manage Stead, he could manage anything.

Over the next seven years Stead would develop what Matthew Arnold dubbed 'The New Journalism'. His innovations as editor of the *Gazette* included incorporating maps and diagrams into a newspaper for the first time, breaking up longer articles with eye-catching subheadings and blending his own opinions with those of the people he interviewed. He made a feature of the *Pall Mall* extras, and his enterprise and originality exercised a potent influence on contemporary journalism and politics. Stead's first sensational campaign was based on a Nonconformist pamphlet, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London. His lurid stories of squalid life in the slums had a wholly beneficial effect on the capital. A Royal Commission recommended that the government should clear the slums and encourage low-cost housing in their place. It was Stead's first success. He also introduced the interview, creating a new dimension in British journalism when he interviewed General Gordon in 1884. In 1884, Stead pressured the government to send his friend General Gordon into Sudan to protect British interests in Khartoum. The eccentric Gordon disobeyed orders, and the siege of Khartoum, Gordon's death and the failure of the hugely expensive Gordon Relief Expedition was one of the great imperial disasters of the period. After the death of General Gordon in Khartoum in January 1885, Stead ran the first 24-point headline in newspaper history, "TOO LATE!", bemoaning the relief force's failure to rescue a national hero.

1885 saw him force the British government to supply an additional £5.5million to bolster weakening naval defences, after he published a series of articles. Stead was no hawk however, instead believing that Britain's strong navy was necessary to maintain world peace. He distinguished himself for his vigorous handling of public affairs, and his brilliant modernity in the presentation of news. However he is also credited as originating the modern journalistic technique of creating a news event rather than just reporting it, as his most famous 'investigation', the Eliza Armstrong case was to demonstrate.

In 1886, he started a campaign against Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet over his nominal exoneration in the Crawford scandal. The campaign ultimately contributed to Dilke's misguided attempt to clear his name and consequent ruin.

### Eliza Armstrong case

In 1885, Stead entered upon a crusade against child prostitution by publishing a series of four articles entitled *The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon*. In order to demonstrate the truth of his revelations, he arranged the 'purchase' of the 13-year-old daughter of a chimney sweep, Eliza Armstrong. His first instalment was trailed with a warning guaranteed to make the Pall Mall Gazette sell out. Copies changed hands for 20 times their original value and the office was besieged by 10,000 members of the public. The popularity of the articles was so great that the Gazette's supply of paper ran out and had to be replenished with supplies from the rival Globe.

Though his action is thought to have furthered the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, his successful demonstration of the trade's existence led to his conviction for abduction and a three-month term of imprisonment at Coldbath Fields and Holloway prisons. He was convicted on technical grounds that he had failed to first secure permission for the "purchase" from the girl's father.

The Maiden Tribute campaign was the high point in Stead's career in daily journalism. The series inspired George Bernard Shaw to write Pygmalion, who named his lead character Eliza. Another of the characters described, the "Minotaur of London", is reckoned to have inspired Jekyll and Hyde.

## ***Interesting article about a shipwreck***

On March 22 1886, he published an article called *How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid-Atlantic, by a Survivor*. It details a collision between a small barque and a large mail steamer, causing both ships to sink. The small sailing ships sinks almost immediately, but the story focuses on the unnamed mail steamer, which is listing heavily to starboard, causing the 916 people on board to panic. The lifeboats only have enough capacity to save 400 people, but in the hysteria they are lowered with few people, as panicking male passengers try to force their way into the lifeboats and lower them on their own, only to be thrown out at gunpoint by sailors and officers. At the end of the story, about 700 people are still on board when the ship sinks. The story concludes with Stead's editorial comment: "This is exactly what might take place and will take place if liners are sent to sea short of boats."

## *Review of Reviews* and other ventures

Stead resigned his editorship of the *Pall Mall* in 1889 in order to found the *Review of Reviews* (1890) with Sir George Newnes. It was a highly successful non-partisan monthly. The journal found a global audience and was intended to bind the empire together by synthesising all its best journalism. Stead's abundant energy and facile pen found scope in many other directions in journalism of an advanced humanitarian type. This time saw Stead "at the very height of his professional prestige", according to E T Raymond. He was the first editor to employ female journalists.

In 1893-4 he lived in Chicago for six months, campaigning against brothels and drinking dens, and published *If Christ Came to Chicago*.

Beginning in 1895, Stead issued affordable reprints of classic literature under such titles as *Penny Poets* and *Penny Popular Novels*, in which he "boil[ed] down the great novels of the world so that they might fit into, say, sixty-four pages instead of six hundred". His ethos behind the venture pre-dated Allen Lane's of Penguin Books by a number of years, and he became "the foremost publisher of paperbacks in the Victorian Age".

Stead became an enthusiastic supporter of the peace movement, and of many other movements, popular and unpopular, in which he impressed the public generally as an extreme visionary, though his practical energy was recognised by a considerable circle of admirers and pupils. Stead was a pacifist and a campaigner for peace, who favoured a "United States of Europe" and a "High Court of Justice among the nations" (an early version of the United Nations, yet he also preferred the use of force in the defence of law. He extensively covered the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (for the last he printed a daily paper during the four month conference). He has a bust at the Peace Palace in The Hague. As a result of these activities, Stead was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

With all his unpopularity, and all the suspicion and opposition engendered by his methods, his personality remained a forceful one both in public and private life. He was an early imperialist dreamer, whose influence on Cecil Rhodes in South Africa remained of primary importance; and many politicians and statesmen, who on most subjects were completely at variance with his ideas, nevertheless owed something to them. Rhodes made him his confidant, and was inspired in his will by his suggestions; and Stead was intended to be one of Rhodes's executors. At the time of the Second Boer War he threw himself into the Boer cause and attacked the government with characteristic violence. His name was struck out.

The number of his publications gradually became very large, as he wrote with facility and sensational fervour on all sorts of subjects, from *The Truth about Russia* (1888) to *If Christ Came to Chicago!* (Laird & Lee, 1894), and from *Mrs Booth* (1900) to *The Americanisation of the World* (1902).

Stead was an Esperantist, and often supported Esperanto, the international language, in a monthly column in *Review of Reviews*.

In 1904 he launched *The Daily Paper*, which folded after six weeks, and Stead lost £35,000 of his own money (almost £3 million in 2012) and suffered a nervous breakdown.

## Spiritualism

In the 1890s, Stead became increasingly interested in spiritualism. In 1893 he founded a spiritualist quarterly, called *Borderland*, in which he gave full play to his interest in psychical research. Stead was editor and he employed Ada Goodrich Freer as assistant editor: she was also a substantial contributor under the pseudonym "Miss X". Stead claimed that he was in the habit of communicating with Freer by telepathy and automatic writing. The magazine ceased publication in 1897.

Stead claimed to be in receipt of messages from the spirit world, and, in 1892, to be able to produce automatic writing. His spirit contact was alleged to be the departed Julia Ames, an American temperance reformer and journalist whom he met in 1890 shortly before her death. In 1909 he established *Julia's Bureau* where inquirers could obtain information about the spirit world from a group of resident mediums.

Grant Richards said that "The thing that operated most strongly in lessening Stead's hold on the general public was his absorption in spiritualism".

## *Titanic*

He boarded the *Titanic* at Southampton, traveling to America to take part in a peace congress, at the request of the president William Howard Taft.

It is not known what cabin he stayed in, his listing on the Cave List left his allocated cabin blank. Steward Cunningham testified at the US Inquiry that he was in cabin C-89, but his ticket price (£26 11s) can't have afforded him that.

While the ship sank, survivors reported him quietly reading a book in the First Class Smoke Room