Review of Reviews - Founder, W.T. Stead

Founder, W.T. Stead

Stead was a career journalist who was drawn into reform politics in the 1880s, crusading through for such causes as British-Russian friendship, the reform of England's criminal codes, and the maintenance of international peace. He was most famous in Britain for having passed, almost single-handedly, the first child-protection law by investigating and reporting child vice and white slavery in a series of articles titled the "Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon", published in the Pall Mall Gazette in July 1885.

As a result, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 raised the consent age for girls from thirteen to sixteen, similar to "statutory rape" laws in the United States. As editor of the London Pall Mall Gazette (1883–1889), Stead caused newspapers to appear the way they are today. He introduced cross-heads (section titles) and signed articles, popularized interviews, and started illustrations and indexing. An advanced feminist, he was the first London editor to pay women equally with men.

He authored many books, including The Truth about Russia (1888), If Christ Came to Chicago (1893), and The Americanization of the World (1902). His essay "How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic" (1886) is considered his first prediction of the sinking of the RMS Titanic; his novel From the Old World to the New (1892) was the second prediction. Stead himself died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.