Early Life
He was born in Embleton, Northumberland, the son of a Congregational minister, the Rev William Stead and Isabella (née Jobson), a cultivated daughter of a Yorkshire farmer. A year later the family moved to Howdon on the River Tyne. Stead was largely educated at home by his father, and by the age of five he was already well-versed in the Holy Scriptures and is said to have been able to read Latin almost as well as he could read English. It was Stead's mother who perhaps had the most lasting influence on her son's career. One of Stead's favourite childhood memories was of his mother leading a local campaign against the government's controversial Contagious Diseases Acts — which required prostitutes living in garrison towns to undergo medical examination.
In 1862 he attended Silcoates School in Wakefield, but in 1864 he was apprenticed to a merchant's office on the Quayside in Newcastle upon Tyne where he became a clerk.
Read more about this topic: William Thomas Stead
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“[My early stories] are the work of a living writer whom I know in a sense, but can never meet.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)