John Goldworth Alger (1836–1907) was an English journalist and author.

Life

Born at Diss,

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, and baptised on 7 August 1836, he was the only son of John Alger, a corn merchant there, by his wife Jemima, daughter of Salem Goldworth of

Morning Thorpe Morning is the period from sunrise to noon. There are no exact times for when morning begins (also true of evening and night) because it can vary according to one's lifestyle and the hours of daylight at each time of year. However, morning strict ...

, Norfolk. His younger sister was the headmistress Mary Jemima Alger. Educated at Diss, Alger became a journalist at the age of 16. At first he wrote for the '' Norfolk News'', and afterwards transferred his services to the ''Oxford Journal''. In 1866 Alger joined the parliamentary reporting staff of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', and after eight years of that job was sent to Paris in 1874 to act as assistant to Henri Opper de Blowitz, the ''Times'' correspondent there. He stayed for 28 years. In 1902 Alger retired from ''The Times'' on a pension, and settled in London. He died unmarried at 7 Holland Park Court, Addison Road,

West Kensington West Kensington, formerly North End, is an area in the ancient parish of Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) west of Charing Cross. It covers most of the London postal area of W14, includ ...

, on 23 May 1907.

Works

Alger researched the topographical history of Paris, and English participation in the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

. His major publications were: * ''Englishmen in the French Revolution'', 1889. * ''Glimpses of the French Revolution'', 1894. * ''Paris in 1789-94; Farewell Letters of Victims of the Guillotine'', 1902. * ''Napoleon's British Visitors and Captives'', 1904. Alger also published ''The Paris Sketch Book'' (a description of contemporary Parisian life) (1887), contributed historical articles to magazines, and was a contributor to the '' Dictionary of National Biography''.

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Alger, John Goldworth 1836 births 1907 deaths English male journalists English male non-fiction writers People from Diss, Norfolk