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James Fitzjames Stephen’s daily journalism
Contributions to the Pall Mall Gazette and St. James’s Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
According to information supplied to Leslie Stephen by George Smith, publisher
of the Pall Mall Gazette (Life, pp. 213-14), Fitzjames contributed 1,119 articles
between 1865 and 1875, besides occasional notes and correspondence. (No
contributions are recorded after 1875, with the exception of one article in 1878.)
Leslie evidently assumed that all of these were leading articles. ‘Making
allowance for Sundays, it will be seen that in 1868 Fitzjames wrote two-thirds of
the leaders, nearly half the leaders in 1867, and not much less than half in the
three other years’ of his greatest productivity, 1865, 1866, and 1869. (The totals
recorded for these years are 226, 194, 143, 147, and 142 articles, respectively.) If
the assumption is correct, then the list Leslie reproduces actually understates his
brother’s contributions, inasmuch as Fitzjames certainly contributed
miscellaneous articles and reviews as well as leaders.
Contributions listed here are assigned to five categories.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Attributed in Leslie Stephen, Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen
Signed letters
Claimed by Stephen in private correspondence
Attributed by contemporaries
Attributed by scholars
1. Attributed in Leslie Stephen
‘Retrospects and prospects’, 8 Feb. 1865, 1-2 (1:9-10).
Fitzjames ‘began to write in the second number of the paper [Pall Mall Gazette],
and before very long he took the lion’s share of the leading articles’ (Life of Sir
James Fitzjames Stephen, p. 213). The reference is evidently to the leader in this
number.
‘Lord Westbury as a lawyer’, 13 July 1865, 1 (1:1501). Westbury resigned the
chancellorship 5 July 1865, at which time ‘a very cordial eulogy upon the exchancellor’s merits as a law reformer’ was inserted in the Pall Mall Gazette at
Fitzjames’s request (Life, p. 169).
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‘Thoughts at the funeral of Lord Palmerston’, 27 Oct. 1865, 1 (2:845).
Life, pp. 216-18.
‘Trades unions’, ‘Masters and men’, 21 Nov. 1865, 1-2 (2:1105-6), 8 Dec. 1865, 1-2
(2:1301-2).
Life, p. 213: ‘on one occasion a controversy between [Fitzjames and Frederic
Harrison] upon the theory of strikes actually ends by a mutual acceptance of
each other’s conclusions.’ According to M. Vogeler, Frederic Harrison: The
Vocations of a Positivist (Oxford, 1984), pp. 62-63, 402n45, Leslie’s remark refers to
these articles and Harrison’s letters responding to them (‘Trade unionism’,
‘Masters and men’, 7 Dec. 1865, 3-4 (2:1287-88), 12 Dec. 1865, 3 (2:1347). In an
editorial postscript to the second letter, the writer (evidently Fitzjames)
concludes, ‘Our own views have been sometimes so eagerly charged with
harshness and selfishness that we are well contented to find that they are
substantially the same as those of an ardent advocate of working men’s rights.’
‘The end of the Pan-Anglican Synod’, 2 Oct. 1867, 1-2 (6:1157-58). Quoted, Life, p.
197.
‘“W. R. G.” on the Irish Church’, 17 Nov. 1868, 4 (8:1580). Life, p. 213, quoted
213n1. See Signed letters.
‘The Archbishop of York on the limits of philosophical inquiry’, 26 Nov. 1868, 1112 (8:1707-8). Life, pp. 198-99.
2. Signed letters
‘Pelizzioni’s case’, 28 March 1865, 3-4 (1:411-12).
Signed ‘J. Fitzjames Stephen’
‘The powers of the Pope’ [two letters], 2, 8 June 1865, 4 (1:1084, 1144).
Signed ‘J. F. S.’
‘Prayer and the philosophers’, 19 Oct. 1865, 3-4 (2:771-72).
Signed ‘J. F. S.’
‘The responsibility of private soldiers’, 26 March 1867, 4 (5:1048)
Signed ‘J. F. S.’
‘Unintentional profanity’, 7 Sept. 1868, 4.
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Written from Kerry and signed ‘F.’ Fitzjames was a guest of the Froudes in
County Kerry, Ireland, at the time.
?‘The healthiness of Calcutta’, 25 Sept. 1868, 4.
Signed ‘F.’ Defends Henry Maine against a ‘personal sneer’.
‘“W. R. G.” on the Irish Church’ [two letters], 13, 17 Nov. 1868, 3-4, 4 (8:1535-36,
1580).
Signed ‘J. F. S.’
‘How to stop tunding’, 25 Nov. 1872, 3 (16:1775)
Signed ‘J. F. S.’
‘The law of conspiracy’, 17 April 1873, 4-5 (17:1420-21)
Signed ‘J. F. Stephen’.
Stephen replied to a critic in a second letter (‘The law of conspiracy’, 21 April
1873, 3-4).
‘The religion of inhumanity’, 3, 6 June 1873, 3, 3 (15:2059, 2107)
Signed ‘J. F. Stephen’.
The first letter replies to Frederic Harrison’s review of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,
which had just been published in the Fortnightly Review. The second replies to
Harrison’s defense of the review in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette (‘The religion
of inhumanity’, 5 June 1873, 3 [15:2091]).
‘The Tichborne case from a legal point of view’, 17 March 1874, 4-5 (19:1028-29).
Signed ‘J. F. S.’
‘Law and science’, 18 Nov. 1874, 4-5 (20:1740-41).
Signed ‘J. F. S.’
F. Pollock to O. W. Holmes, 26 July 1877 (Holmes-Pollock Letters, ed. Howe, 1:7-8):
‘In 1874 I wrote a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette on “Case Law and
Inductive Science” which were I believe taken by several people as a covert
argument against codification. They produced a long half-controversial letter
from Sir James Stephen and I had to explain that such was not my meaning.’
‘The Gaikwar’s case’, 26, 28, 29 April 1875, 4-5, 3-5, 4-5 (21:1556-57, 1587-89,
1604-5)
Signed ‘James Fitzjames Stephen’.
‘The Gaikwar’s case’, 3 May 1875, 3.
Signed ‘J. F. Stephen’.
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Stephen briefly gives his reasons for not replying to a criticism of his three letters.
That criticism had appeared in a letter in the Pall Mall Gazette on 30 April (‘The
Gaikwar’, p. 3).
3. Claimed by Stephen
‘The prosecution of Nagle’, 2 March 1868, 1 (7:833).
‘“Historicus” once more’, 6 March 1868, 1-2 (7:897-98).
‘A sharp encounter with “Historicus” of the “Times”’ (Life, p. 213) probably
refers to the exchange provoked by Stephen’s leading article of 2 March 1868, on
the case of William Nagle, an American Fenian. Stephen wrote to his wife on 5
March, ‘Have you seen how furiously Historicus has been at me? perfectly
unprovoked, on account of certain harmless theories of mine about international
law.’ The reference is to a letter in The Times, 4 March 1868, p. 9, replying to this
article—said to be the work of a ‘writer, who has recently favoured the world
with a theory of International Law which, if it possesses no other merits, has, at
least, that of novelty’. Stephen counter-replied on 6 March.
(It is possible though not as likely that Leslie was thinking of another encounter
from the same year. ‘Historicus’ [William Harcourt] wrote to the Pall Mall
Gazette to defend himself against the charge of inconsistency made in an article of
24 January 1868, ‘”Historicus” on arbitration’ [p. 3, 7:323]; his letter was
published 27 January with a lengthy rejoinder [pp. 3-4, 7:355-56]. See A. G.
Gardiner, The Life of Sir William Harcourt [London, 1923], 1:198-99, which
reproduces the final paragraph of this letter.)
‘The House of Commons as a debating club’, 11 June 1868, 1-2 (7:2193-94).
‘Men and women’, 2 July 1868, 10-11 (8:26-27).
‘Men and women’, 14 July 1868, 9-10 (8:169-70).
Stephen to Emily Cunningham, 19 June 1868: ‘I have been getting into a quarrel
about women’s rights. I wrote an article called “The House of Commons as a
Debating Club” about 10 days ago…’ Stephen’s ‘quarrel’ ultimately involved J.
S. Mill’s stepdaughter Helen Taylor, who sent a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette
replying to the article of 2 July, in which Stephen restated the views expressed in
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‘The House of Commons as a debating club’ while apologizing for some rough
phrases (the letter appeared 8 July). Stephen to his wife, 10 July 1868: ‘I daresay
you saw that Miss Taylor has written a letter in the P. M. G. reviling me. — She is
a cleverish woman, who knows nothing, and is never likely to know anything,
about marriage, or to learn anything about it either from her stepfather, who,
upon such subjects, seems to me to cut his fingers with his sharp wits.’ Stephen
defended his views on 14 July.
‘The morals of expediency and intuition’, 5 June 1869, 11-12, 8 June 1869, 11-13
(9:1951-52, 1979-81).
These are the basis for the ‘Note on Utilitarianism’ at the end of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity.
‘Mr. Mill on the subjection of women’, 29 June 1869, 11-13 (9:2251-53), 23 August
1869, 11-12 (10:731-32).
Stephen mentioned in letters to his wife on 15 and 16 July, 1869, that he was
writing ‘a review of Mill’, and on 17 July that he had finished it. The Subjection of
Women had been published in May. The reference is apparently to the second of
two review-essays in the Pall Mall Gazette, which bear internal evidence of
common authorship. The second essay is promised at the conclusion of, and
begins by referring back to, the first essay; the gap in their publication is not
explained.
‘Clergymen in Parliament’, 5 Jan. 1870, 6 [vol. 11; paginated by date only].
Fitzjames to Leslie Stephen, 25 Nov. 1869, ‘Near Aden’: ‘I have been writing like
a small steam-engine and have sent 14 articles to the P.M.G. since I left home.
One was specially meant for you, about enabling clergymen to take off their
gowns and go into Parliament…’
‘The problem of Positivism’, 5 Jan. 1870, 9.
Signed ‘Patriæ Quis Exul’.
J. F. Stephen to Leslie, 25 Jan. 1870, refers to a projected ‘series of letters from
“Patriæ quis Exul”’, but this appears to be the only published example.
‘Undue influence’, 18 July 1872, 1-2 (16:241-42).
Stephen to Emily Cunningham, 18 Sept. 1872: ‘I’m glad you think I refuted Greg
on undue influence. I like refuting him. He is one of the most ingeniously
wrongheaded people I ever knew, and the only time I thought ill of the German
prospects in the war, was when he took their side in the papers.’ (Stephen’s
remark ‘I like refuting him [W. R. G.]’ is quoted in the Life, p. 213.)
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‘Books about India’, 23, 26 July 1872, 11-12, 11-12 (16:315-16, 363-64).
Review of Orissa by W. W. Hunter and Concerning John’s Indian affairs by R. H.
Elliot.
Stephen to Emily Cunningham, ??? 1872: ‘I have written all about a foolish little
book by one Elliott called Concerning John’s Indian Affairs. It is a contemptible
little book, but represents fairly enough one view of Indian policy to which I
have an especial dislike’.
Stephen issued a rejoinder to Elliot’s reply (‘Mr. Elliot’, 8 Aug. 1872, 5, signed
‘Your Reviewer’).
‘The East African slave trade’, 12 Aug. 1872, 1 (16:577).
Stephen to Emily Cunningham, 10 Aug. 1872: ‘I wrote an article yesterday about
Dr. Livingstone and his savages. Poor creatures—I hope we shall not make them
as miserable by our civilization as some others have been made. The best thing
we could do for them I believe would be to see as little of them as possible.’
‘The Bishop of Carlisle upon heathenism’, 11 Sept. 1872, 1-2 (16:913-14).
Stephen to Emily Cunningham, 8 Nov. 1872: ‘So you liked my article about the
Light of the world, and the Bishop of Carlisle [Harvey Goodwin]. It is a strange
sort of resurrection to hear of an article, two months after one had forgotten all
about it. My opinion is, and long has been, that the English people, though to
blame, like all others, are considerably less to blame than they often appear, for
their various social evils—pauperism and so on. I think, in the first place, they
greatly exaggerate their comparative magnitude, and I think, in the next place,
they set up quite a false standard of social duty now, because till lately they
neglected the true one. In short I think exaggeration is the sin of the age, and I
find it more in vogue in regard to philanthropy than in regard to almost
anything else. However all that is to be put into my letters on Fraternity…’
‘The rights of children’, 17 Dec. 1872, 1-2 (16:2061-62).
Stephen wrote to A. J. Mundella, 19 Dec. 1872, offering to draft a bill on
children’s rights: ‘The Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette has sent me a letter of yours
in reference to an article of mine on the Rights of Children. I shall be most happy
to see and consult with you…’ (letter reproduced in The Times Literary
Supplement, 18 Dec. 1948).
‘Dr. Hayman’s case’, 23 March 1874, 1 (19:1105).
Stephen to Emily Cunningham, 19 March 1874: ‘We are much pleased at [Henry]
Hayman’s ejection from Rugby… You will have seen in the P.M.G. what I
thought of the end of Hayman’s case. I think the masters were and are the very
cream of priggishness…’
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4. Attributed by contemporaries
‘Why should not parsons hunt?’ 18 March 1865 (1:315).
Signed ‘Homo Sum’. The Letters of Anthony Trollope, ed. N. John Hall (Stanford,
1983), 1:295-96.
‘President Lincoln’s assassination’, 26 April 1865, 1 (1:697).
George Smith, unpublished ‘Recollections’, National Library of Scotland, quoted
in J. W. Robertson Scott, The Story of the Pall Mall Gazette, p. 173.
‘Secondary education’, 20 Jan. 1866, 4 (3:216).
Signed ‘A British Philistine’. The Letters of Matthew Arnold, ed. Cecil Y. Lang
(Charlottesville, 1996), 3:7-8.
‘Mr. Gladstone’s Autobiography’, 24 Nov. 1868, 1-2 (8:1669-70).
R. H. Hutton, ‘The Pall Mall on Mr. Gladstone’s “soft stuff”’ (Spectator, 28 Nov.
1868) replies to this article; Hutton names Stephen as “the anti-Gladstone man”
in a letter to Henry Allon (Letters to a Victorian Editor, ed. Albert Peel [London,
1929], p. 179). See Robert H. Tener, ‘Breaking the code of anonymity: The case of
the “Spectator”, 1861-1897’ (Yearbook of English Studies, 16 [1986], p. 73). Hutton
addressed a personal letter to Stephen (Stephen Papers, Cambridge University
Library), praising his review ‘The Archbishop of York on the limits of
philosophical inquiry’ (listed above, section 1) but warning him against writing
‘another piece of narrow sneering at Gladstone’.
‘Mr. O’Keefe on Ultramontanism’, 29 April 1873, 1-2 (17:1577-78), ‘Mr. O’Keefe’s
case’, 12 May 1873, 1 (17:1753).
Cited by Edward Jenkins (‘Bismarckism in England’, Contemporary Review, June
1873).
‘The death of Mr. Mill’, 10 May 1873, 1-2 (17:1737-38).
Frederic Harrison to John Morley, 12 May 1873: ‘We are all irritated and
outraged by the brutal attack on notice in the Times… But Fitzjames in the Pall
Mall really was worthy of the occasion. Do you not see how fine he can be, and
what sterling stuff is underneath his rough outside.’ This is apparently the
article Stephen sent to Mill’s stepdaughter, Helen Taylor, with his letter of
condolence: ‘I tried in some measure to express my feelings in an article in the
Pall Mall Gazette which I enclose. It was hurried and imperfect in every way,
but I hope you will accept it as a sincere though inadequate expression of deep
and genuine feelings.’
‘The government and the labour laws’, 19 March 1874, 1-2 (19:1057-58).
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A. J. Mundella to Robert Leader, 21 March 1874 (quoted in W. H. G. Armytage,
A. J. Mundella, 1825-1897: The Liberal Background to the Labour Movement [London,
1951], 148-49), refers to ‘Fitzjames Stephen’s article in the Pall Mall of Wednesday
night’; the subject is the appointment of a commission to study the question of
picketing by trade unions. Mundella seems to have had this article in mind,
though it appeared on a Thursday.
5. Attributed by scholars
Roach
No work has been done on the Pall Mall Gazette comparable to Bevington’s study
of the Saturday Review. On a much smaller scale, John Roach has ‘taken a single
year (1867), and worked through the leading articles, attempting to decide, from
internal evidence, which of them were written by Stephen’ (‘Liberalism and the
Victorian intelligentsia’, Cambridge Historical Journal, vol. 13, no. 1 [1957], 62n20).
He cites nine:
‘Discussions on democracy’, 10 Jan. 1867 (5:113)
‘The possibilities of the Session’, 22 Jan. 1867 (5:253)
‘Cumulative voting considered’, 6 March 1867 (5:793)
‘Cumulative voting’, 15 March 1867 (5:913)
‘Mr. Carlyle on the Falls of Niagara’, 10 Aug. 1867 (6:545)
‘The triumph of pure reason’, 15 Aug. 1867 (6:601)
‘The Liberalism of the future’, 11 Oct. 1867 (6:1261)
‘The Abyssinian debate’, 27 Nov. 1867 (6:1865)
‘Mr. Gladstone at Oldham’, 19 Dec. 1867 (6:2169)
(‘Cumulative voting considered’ replies to a letter from ‘W. R. G.’ [William
Rathbone Greg], one of Stephen’s principal antagonists at the Pall Mall Gazette
[Life, pp. 212-13]. On 12 March another letter appears, with a leader in reply in
the same issue, presumably by Stephen, ‘Cumulative voting reconsidered’.)
Peatling
Stephen to Lord Houghton, 20 Dec. 1865: ‘I have done most of the Jamaica
articles in the P.M.G.’
‘I identified six leading articles in the Gazette about Jamaica between 13
November 1865 (when news of events surrounding the disturbance first reached
its front page) and 20 December 1865. … [These] four articles…seem most likely
to be what he is referring to in the letter to Houghton, though it is impossible to
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be certain in any one given case.’ (G. K. Peatling, ‘Stephen’s contributions to the
Pall Mall Gazette and the St. James’s Gazette: some thoughts’ [unpublished
memorandum], p. 2)
‘The insurrection in Jamaica’, 20 Nov. 1865.
‘Dr. Underhill and the Times’, 24 Nov. 1865
‘Emancipation and slavery’, 29 Nov. 1865
‘Jamaica’, 14 Dec. 1865.
St. James’s Gazette
When Frederick Greenwood, who had been editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, started
a new daily called the St. James’s Gazette (the Pall Mall Gazette having passed into
other hands), Stephen, though by then a judge, took up daily journalism once
again. ‘Both personal and political sympathy induced him, as he put it, “to take
Mr. Greenwood’s shilling”… He wrote a good many articles upon legal and
literary topics from 1881 to 1883, and some which came very close to
contemporary politics’ (Life, p. 460).
‘Old creeds and new’, 18 Nov. 1880, 11-12.
Identified as Stephen’s in a letter to John Henry Newman from W. S. Lilly.
Newman’s reply to Lilly, dated 17 February 1881, is printed in vol. 29 of his
Letters and Diaries (London: Thomas Nelson, 1961–).
‘The Land Bill’, 27, 28 April 1881, 11-12, 11-12.
Signed ‘J. F. S.’
‘Cowardice’, 25 Aug. 1881, 11-12.
‘The “Passover of democracy”’, 31 Aug. 1881, 3-4.
In a letter dated 12 September 1881, Stephen responded to an attempt by Lord
Lytton to identify Stephen’s contributions in the St. James’s Gazette; only these
two were guessed correctly.
‘”Never say die”: a dramatic monologue’, 2 Dec. 1881, 11.
Cited by Leslie Stephen, Life, pp. 457-58.
‘Mr. Justice Stephen on the trial of the patent cases’, 7 Dec. 1881, 11-12.
Signed ‘J. F. Stephen’.
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