Richard Bourne - Lords of Fleet Street: The Harmsworth Dynasty

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: JOURNALISM

Volume 3

LORDS OF FLEET STREET

The Harmsworth Dynasty

RICHARD BOURNE

First published in 1990

This edition first published in 2016

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1990 Richard Bourne

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-80197-4 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-315-68235-8 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-91999-0 (Volume 3) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-68267-9 (Volume 3) (ebk)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

LORDS OF FLEET STREET

The Harmsworth Dynasty

Richard Bourne

First published in Great Britain by the Trade Division of Unwin Hyman Limited, 1990

Richard Bourne 1990

The right of Richard Bourne to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Unwin Hyman Limited.

UNWIN HYMAN LIMITED

1517 Broadwick Street

London W1V 1FP

Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Ltd
8 Napier Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia

Allen & Unwin New Zealand Pty Ltd with the Port Nicholson Press Compusales Building, 75 Ghuznee Street, Wellington, New Zealand.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Bourne, Richard

Lords of Fleet Street: The Harmsworth Dynasty.

1. Great Britain. Newspaper publishing industries.

Harmsworth, (Family)

I. Title

388.761070172092

ISBN 0-04-440450-6

Typeset in 11 on 12 point Sabon by Computape (Pickering) Ltd,
North Yorkshire and printed in Great Britain by
Hartnoll Limited, Bodmin, Cornwall

Harmsworth Family Tree (With the assistance of the Hon. Mrs Daphne Macneil Dixon)

Plates 1 to 14 between

Plates 15 to 28 between

The suggestion for a new history of the Harmsworths, from Northcliffe to the present day, originated with Peter Shellard and Bill Neill-Hall who were then with Messrs J. M. Dent. I should like to thank them most warmly for starting me on a lengthy but satisfying undertaking.

Since the Harmsworth newspaper proprietors have given rise to periodic controversy it should be stated that this is not an official, authorised history commissioned by the family. I have, however, received valuable help from several members of the family, gladly acknowledged below. My object has been to give a fair and rounded picture of a unique newspaper dynasty which has lasted through three generations, where personal and family history is significantly entwined with press, politics, business and the social evolution of modern Britain.

The only time I ever distantly worked for a Harmsworth was in 1959 when I was a trainee reporter on the Cambridge Daily News, briefly owned by the International Publishing Corporation of which Cecil Harmsworth King was then chairman. In 1977, I joined the Evening Standard as Deputy Editor just a few weeks before it was the subject of a take-over bid by Associated Newspapers; the attempt was repelled at that time, and I was no longer working for that paper when it subsequently joined the Rothermere group.

In thanking the following individuals for their guidance and help I should stress that they are in no way responsible for my opinions or conclusions: Jonathan Aitken, Tom Baistow, the late Noel Barber, Peter and Christabel Bielenberg, Jeffrey Blyth, Arthur Brittenden, David Cash, Lady Lorna Cooper-Key, Aidan Crawley, the Earl and Countess of Cromer, John Dickie, Granville Eastwood, Sir David English, Miss E. Gilbert, John Gold, Vanessa Gorst, the late Desmond, Baron Harmsworth of Egham, Guy Harmsworth, Lady Harmsworth Blunt, Madeleine Harmsworth, Vyvyan Harmsworth, Michael Herd, David Hill, Andrew Howard (for assistance on the Daily Mail coverage of elections), Derek Ingram, Simon Jenkins, William Keegan, Richard Kershaw, Randolph Lederer, John Leese, Campbell Leggat, Brian MacArthur (for kindly reading the draft), the Hon. Mrs Daphne Macneil Dixon, Michael Mander, Jim Markwick, the late Keith McDowell, Norris McWhirter, Eugene Nadasy, Roy Nash, Peter Quennell, Michael Randall, Robert Redhead, Vere, Viscount Rothermere of Hemsted, the family of the late Gerald Sanger (especially for permission to consult the G. F. Sanger diaries), Sir Patrick Sergeant, Professor Colin Seymour Ure (who kindly read the manuscript), David Skan, Bernard Shrimsley, Steward Steven, Adrian and Veronica Stokes, Ferenc Szabo, Walter Terry, Noel Vinson, Gritta Weil (for access to papers of Lajos Lederer), John Winnington-Ingram, Charles Wintour, Roy Wright and Peter Younghusband.

Furthermore, I should like to thank the Trustees of the Beaverbrook Foundation and the House of Lords Records Office for permission to quote from the Beaverbrook Papers; and the British Library (Department of Manuscripts and Colindale Newspaper Library) for assistance and permission to quote, especially from the Northcliffe Papers.