THE NEWSPAPER ARCHIVIST
Dennis GRIFFITHS
Former Director of Development, Express Newspapers, London
1. INTRODUCTION
It has been said that while historians using the press are legion, historians of the press are few ...
For the newspaper historian, difficulties are encountered in using the archives of British
newspapers; and even for an archivist looking at his own newspaper there can be a distinct lack of
material, especially if the newspaper in question has undergone various office moves.
Unfortunately, with these moves, there has, invariably, been a "weeding out" of material. In Fleet
Street, space has been at a premium.
During my final years at Express Newspapers, as Research and Development Director, I was in the
strange but delightful position of peering into the technological future of the company - including
the use of space satellites - and, simultaneously, looking back to the foundation of the group.
For almost a century, the keystone of the group had been The Daily Express, founded by Arthur
Pearson in April 1904, but its stablemate, The Evening Standard, had a much longer pedigree,
having been launched on 21 May 1827; and it was only this Spring that the paper celebrated its
50,000th issue, as London's oldest evening title.
In researching the history of The Standard, I assumed that its origins lay in the early nineteenth
century. This was soon to be proved wrong, for there emerged a story of a dedicated Protestant
family of printers and publishers which stretched back to the time of Oliver Cromwell, as it was
then that the founder of the dynasty, Richard Baldwin, was born.
For the next 200 years, the Baldwin family was to be a major force in the publishing of newspapers
in this country; and from humble origins near St Paul's Cathedral, the business moved to Fleet
Street; New Bridge Street, where The Standard was launched; and finally to St Bride Street, the site
of the present offices. During these two centuries, the family was involved in every major issue in
the fight for the freedom of the press; and from the early days of Richard and Anne Baldwin,
innovators in newspaper publication, to Henry, founder of The St James's Chronicle, to his son
Charles, who started The Standard, and finally to Edward of The Morning Herald, there was the
utmost dedication.
Throughout those years, the best writers had been attracted: Defoe, Dryden and Purcell in the early
eighteenth century; Addison and Steele with Mrs Baldwin on The Tatler and The Spectator; the
"phalanx of first class wits" on The St James's Chronicle - Boswell, Burke, Colman, Cowper,
Garrick, Goldsmith, Sheridan and Thornton - and Maginn with his acerbic writings in the first
issues of The Standard.
Politically, the papers were always in the forefront; and, on The Standard, from the first editorship
of Giffard to that of Mudford at the close of the nineteenth century, there was a constant
involvement with the Tory leaders: Wellington, Peel, Disraeli and Salisbury - all endeavoured to
influence the editorial columns. Gradually, though, the policy of the paper changed until, under
Mudford, it pursued a brand of Conservative independence.
Salisbury, a one-time leader writer on the paper, could even inform Queen Victoria, when he was
Prime Minister:
'We have no influence with the paper by which we could keep it from any line of writing or tone of
policy that we disapproved. Occasionally it will put in what it is asked to put in: but that is very
rare. The paper is quite independent: but we have to bear the blame of its proceedings.'
And for much of that time, through the influence of James Johnstone, its new
owner, the paper was extremely successful and the chief rival to The Times.
The Standard was first published at 2pm on Monday 21 May 1827, realizing the hopes of
Arbuthnott, Wellington and Peel and their fellow Old Tory supporters.
As Charles Baldwin was later to reveal:
'I was not willing to risk the continuance of my old and valued journal [The St James's Chronicle]; I
preferred the heavier risk of establishing at my own expense and hazard, a Daily Evening Paper to
be conducted on the same principles and by the same editor. I also engaged the assistance of Dr
Maggin and other celebrated writers.
'The choice of a name then claimed our attention. The object was to make a stand against the
inroad of principle; contrary to our Constitution in Church and State; a very appropriate motto was
chosen by Dr Giffard (the Editor):
Signifer, statue signum,
Hie optime manebimus
Plant here The Standard.
Here we shall best remain.
'and on the 21st May, 1827, The Standard was reared, hauled as a rallying point and was speedily
followed by the raising of Standards in the Provincial and Colonial Conservative Press. Even
foreign newspapers have adopted the name.'
2. THE RESEARCH
My initial reaction in commencing the research was to examine the material in The Evening
Standard library. The result was most disappointing; just two brown envelopes with a half-dozen
faded press cuttings and memoranda. Of correspondence, there was none pre-1960, and the files of
the paper only ran for the past few years with an outdated microfilm unit, and no pre-1939 films.
While this "research" was taking place, I was also involved in trying to find a home for the millions
of Evening Standard press cuttings now surplus to requirements. For in 1981, the Evening Standard
offices were at long last being moved into those of the Daily Express in Fleet Street, some 300
yards away. The result was that there was now a spare press cuttings library, as
both The Standard and The Express were to use the Express library. Gordon Phillips, The Times
archivist, wrote at the time of his concern that these cuttings could be lost, and suggested that they
could form part of a National Press Archive. I can assure you that I agreed completely with
Gordon's sentiments. For 12 months we stored these surplus cuttings, at considerable cost, in a
West London warehouse. | The size of the warehouse was as large as a football pitch, and there
must have been more than 600 cabinets in storage. During this period I contacted the Newspaper
Library and every English university offering them the cuttings gratis. The Newspaper Library and
two universities specializing in media studies, would have been delighted to have accepted the
cuttings but when they realized the size of the operation and the probable cost of re-classification
and storage they reluctantly had to decline. The cuttings were then, unfortunately, destroyed, but
not before key files - including those of the Abdication of Edward VIII - had been saved. The
burning of those cuttings was not an act of which we were proud.
We were, however, far more successful with The Evening Standard picture library. Here were
some six million pictures from the 1920s to 1981, and it was a collection especially strong in prewar London. With the efforts of Richard Hewlett, Head of BBC Data, and David Lee, the Chief
Librarian of the BBC Hulton Picture Library, we were able to amalgamate the collection to provide
a new base of more than 12 million pictures, with the possibility of their being updated on a regular
basis from the Express files.
Tests were also undertaken with Datasolve, so that on four computer coordinates one was able to
reach almost any category. For instance, the keying-in of : CHARLES - HORSE - FALL - POLO
would then throw up two captions referring to Prince Charles's mishaps on the polo field. Here was
the base of a far-reaching photographic archive, an archive which could be accessed via satellite on
a world-wide basis, the first major step towards a possible national press/media collection.
For far too long, national newspapers - with the notable exception of The Times - have religiously
guarded their indexes. They have seldom been willing to share their secrets with the general public
or national libraries.
In recent years the libraries of The Daily Sketch and The Sunday Citizen have disappeared without
trace, while the last heard of The Daily Herald cuttings was that they were gathering dust in a
garage near King's Cross Station.
'Press librarians, for a variety of reasons, work completely in a self-imposed isolation, and there is
no central organization on the alert to save libraries from destruction when newspapers are forced to
amalgamate, vacate premises or close down.'
There are in Britain two post-graduate Centres for Journalism Studies, at University College,
Cardiff and, possibly the more important, The City University, London. Here at City, each year,
more than 500 graduates apply for just 24 places on the one-year diploma course. With the
advantage of being able to draw on top-name journalists from Fleet Street and the magazine world,
plus leading politicians and business people as lecturers, the staff at City are able to provide
students with an excellent background to current affairs.
But even though an increasing amount of research is being undertaken, there is a distinct lack of
newspaper library facilities. Given the appropriate Government grant - or even private money here could be a heaven-sent opportunity to establish an Institute of Press Studies.
With the vast amount of data being keyed each day into the ocmputers of national newspapers and,
then, a few hours later, unceremoniously dumped, it
would be a relatively easy matter to capture this information for all time. At Wolverhampton, The
Express and Star is making big strides in this area, but it is very much the front runner.
I would suggest that there is now a need for the setting-up of a proper national press archive, run in
conjunction with academics, librarians, The Newspaper Society and the Newspaper Publishers'
Association. If such an archive had existed these past 150 years my research would have been so
much easier, but, probably not as satisfying ...
3. EARLY DAYS
Without doubt, for any student of the early days of printing and the press in Great Britain the two
founts of knowledge are the Stationers' Company, near St Paul's and St Bride Printing Library, off
Fleet Street. To work with the actual Apprentices' Register Book 1666 - 1727 at Stationer's Hall
brings into proper perspective the long history of printing in Great Britain. And it was there that I
came upon the first references to the Baldwin family, when Richard, the son of Thomas, a
hempdresser, from High Wycombe, Bucks, was bound at the age of fourteen from August 1668 for
seven years to George Eversden, a printer, specialising in the publication and sale of theological
works. From such small beginnings was to grow a newspaper empire ... Mention is also made in
these registers, in later years, of Henry Baldwin, founder of The St James's Chronicle, and his son,
Charles, of Standard fame, both of whom were to become Masters of the Stationer's Company.
Secondary works covering this period include those of Maxted, Plomer, Dunton, Rosenberg and
Richard and Marjorie Bond's researches into the Minutes Books of The St James's Chronicle. The
minute books, discovered only 25 years ago, were sold to the Manuscripts Department of the
University of North Carolina Library. Contained in three volumes they detail more than 550
meetings held between 15 May 1761 and 9 August 1815. The great pity is that these were allowed
to leave Great Britain: they really should be forming a key sector in a British Press Archive.
We are fortunate, though, that an excellent run of The St James's Chronicle from 14 March 1761,
exists in the City of London Reference Library - and here one is able to examine the newspaper and
not the microfilm. As a newspaper man, and not only as an archivist, it is far more satisfying and
rewarding to examine the actual paper, to feel the texture of the newsprint and to look at the
pressmanship. None of this is possible with microfilm. So, in this sense, I would opt every time to
work with the original. One sour note, though, about the City of London Reference Library: until
some 18 months ago one was able to examine files of The Times, Financial Times and other publications. Now, "because of lack of space", these papers are available only on microfilm.
Although, as indicated, no records of early correspondence existed in The Standard Library, through
the aegis of Professor Aspinall's work 1 was led to letters from Dr Stanley Lees Giffard, the editor,
offering the services of his newspaper to Peel and Wellington. During all this time, the late
Professor Stephen Koss, and his great works, proved of immense help. Not only did he check the
early research, offering his advice, but proffered suggestions in other areas.
One such area was to bring me into contact with the present Earl of Halsbury, the distinguished
Chancellor of Brunei University. At a full-day meeting, he
was able to provide information on his great-grandfather, Stanley Lees Giffard, and, more
importantly, was able to give a first-hand account of talks with his grandfather, the first Earl of
Halsbury, Lord Chancellor of England. As a young man, the first Earl, then Hardinge Giffard, had
worked on the paper as a sub-editor. Here was a remarkable direct link with the first days of The
Standard, including an eye-witness account of The Chartist Demonstration on 10 May 1848 :
'... I came across a big policeman, twice as big as myself, who was being sent with a message to
Fergus O'Connor, the head of the movement, and I went with him. He said, I suppose with some
irony, "I suppose, Sir, you are protecting me" '
Apart from these direct references, the files of The Standard from day one were to prove invaluable.
And here I was fortunate in having the "freedom of the shelves" of the Newspaper Library in
Colindale.
Of the many fascinating incidents of this time, recorded in the paper, one was to stand out: the duel
between the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, and the Earl of Winchilsea, on Saturday 21
March 1829. It arose out of a letter from Winchilsea published in The Standard in which he
accused Wellington of supporting Catholic Emancipation. Some 18 letters were to pass between
the combatants before the duel; and all were later published in the paper along with the Earl's
fulsome apology. As the Duke was to say some months later: 'The truth is that the duel with Lord
Winchilsea was as much part of the Roman Catholick question, and it was necessary to undertake it
... as was to do everything else that I could do to attain the object which I had in view.'
Many other characters were to grace the pages of The Standard in those early days, but none more
colourful than Dr William Maginn, immortalized by Thackeray as the Captain Shandon of
Pendennis. One critic noted of Maginn: "He would write a leader in The Standard one evening,
answer it is The True Sun the following day and abuse both in John Bull on the ensuing Sunday."
Thackeray, his close friend, has left a vivid account of his meeting with the Doctor in Fleet Prison,
from whence Maginn would provide copy for The Standard. But probably the best passage in the
book is the visit to The Standard offices, one of the most quoted and descriptive passages in all
newspaper literature:
' "Look at that, Penn," Warrington said. "There she is - the great engine - she never sleeps. She has
her ambassadors in every quarter of the world - her couriers upon every road. Her officers march
with armies, and her envoys walk into statemen's cabinets. They are ubiquitous. Yonder journal has
an agent, at this minute, giving bribes at Madrid; and another inspecting the price of potatoes in
Covent Garden. Look! here comes the Foreign Express galloping in. They will be able to give
news to Downing Street tomorrow: funds will rise or fall, fortunes will be made or lost; Lord B will
get up, and holding the paper in his hand, and seeing the noble Marquis in his place, will make a
great speech; and Mr Doolan will be called away from his supper at the Back Kitchen; for he is
foreign sub-editor, and sees the mail on the newspaper sheet before he goes to his own." '
Statesmen and other celebrities feature prominently in the paper for the remainder of the century,
and here the Hughenden Papers (Benjamin Disraeli) at the Bodleian give a valuable insight into his
political machinations with Thomas Hamber, The Standard's editor. Hamber, through his support
of the Southern cause in the American Civil War, is also mentioned in correspondence, now in the
Library of Congress; and there seems little doubt that he was in
the pay of the Confederates. Mudford, his successor, though, was made of much sterner stuff:
'He was a kind of Chinese Emperor, Japanese Mikado in Shoe-lane - the mysterious and aweinspiring inhabitant of a Forbidden City, only accessible to a very few principals, attendants and
acolytes.'
And here the paper's leader writer, and future Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, was to walk a tightrope
between his editor and his political master, Lord Salisbury.
But the dawn of a fresh century, with its New Journalism, was to bring a change in proprietors to
The Standard; firstly C Arthur Pearson, then Dalziel and Hulton before the long stewardship of
Beaverbrook from 1923 until his death in 1964. Beaverbrook, of course, has been well documented,
Taylor's biography being the classic. But there is still much to be learned from the weekly
correspondence between Beaverbrook and his general manager, Robertson.
Apart from the regular searches through The Standard files, much information was gleaned from the
diaries of leading personalities of the past 40 years; Nicholson, Duff Cooper, "Chipps" Channon,
Muggeridge and Bruce Lockhart. I was fortunate in being custodian of the Lockhart Diaries for
some two years, and it was fascinating to read his thoughts on a particular incident and then
compare it with the other person's point of view.
To anyone studying the inter-relationship between the press and government during the past 100
years, I would strongly recommend Stephen Ross's masterpieces, "The rise and fall of the political
press in Britain", Vols. I and II.
4. THE WRITING
Having gathered the information from such a wide variety of sources, there then came the task of
writing it up.
My first thoughts were purely journalistic: to write the history of The Standard as a living entity and
not with the benefit of hindsight. If possible, the reader should be left in a certain state of suspense,
especially at the end of each chapter: there should be no "jumping forward" out of the present time
span.
I was delighted, therefore, after writing the opening chapters, to read Barbara Tuchman's
observations in Practising History:
'One of the difficulties in writing history is the problem of how to keep up suspense in a narrative
whose outcome is known. I worried about this a good deal at the beginning, but after a while the
actual process of writing, as so often happens, produced the solution. I found that if one writes as of
the time, without using the benefit of hindsight, resisting the temptation to refer to events still
ahead, the suspense will build itself up naturally.'
To my mind, many histories suffer from an overzealousness of references, dotted around the page
like some plague, and there is a tendency to over-verbosity.
G R Elton has written:
'But there are two main technical pitfalls on which it is worth offering advice: the use of jargon in
place of real words, and incompetence in the use of real words themselves.
'A strange conviction dictates that a pattern becomes the more intellectually respectable the more it
is expressed in abstract language.'
With regard to the history of The Standard from the 1960s to the present day, this threw up the
problems of dealing with living people and incidents in which I was participant or a bystander, but,
following the advice of Joseph Baylen, the distinguished American newspaper historian, I wrote it
as straight journalism, endeavouring to obtain a balanced standpoint.
Certainly, it had been a fascinating experience and had led to much correspondence and gladlygiven advice from historians and librarians in Great Britain and the United States.