Pall Mall Gazette - History

History

The Pall Mall Gazette took the name of a fictional newspaper conceived by William Makepeace Thackeray. Pall Mall is a street in London where many gentlemen's clubs are located, hence Thackeray's description of his imaginary newspaper in his novel The History of Pendennis (1848–1850):

"We address ourselves to the higher circles of society: we care not to disown it—the Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen for gentlemen; its conductors speak to the classes in which they live and were born. The field-preacher has his journal, the radical free-thinker has his journal: why should the Gentlemen of England be unrepresented in the Press?

Under the ownership of George Smith from 1865 to 1880, with Frederick Greenwood as editor, the Pall Mall Gazette was a Conservative newspaper. Greenwood resigned in 1880 when the paper's new owner wished the paper to support the policies of the Liberal Party.

William Thomas Stead's editorship from 1883 to 1889 saw the paper cover such subjects as child prostitution; their campaign helped get the government to increase the age of consent from 13 to 16 in 1885. This was one of the first examples of investigative journalism, and Stead was arrested for 'unlawful taking of a child' (which he did to highlight how easy it was for the upper-class to buy children.)

Henry Cust, editor from 1892 to 1896, returned the paper to its Conservative beginnings.

Several well-known writers contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette over the years. George Bernard Shaw gained his first job in journalism writing for the paper. Other contributors have included Anthony Trollope, Frederick Engels, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Spencer Walpole, Arthur Patchett Martin, and Jamaican-born writer E. S. Dallas.