Richard Whiteing (27 July 1840 – 29 June 1928) was an English author and
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
.
Biography
Richard Whiteing was born in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
the son of Mary Lander and William Whiteing, a
civil servant employed as an Inland Revenue Officer. His mother died early and Richard claimed to have spent much of his upbringing with foster parents.
For seven years in his youth Whiteing was apprenticed to
Benjamin Wyon as a medalist and seal-engraver; meanwhile he was also educating himself on the side. In 1866, after a failed attempt to start his own medalist business, he turned to journalism as a career. He made his debut with a series of papers in the ''Evening Star'' in 1866, printed separately in the next year as ''Mr Sprouts, His Opinions''. He became leader-writer and correspondent on the ''Morning Star'', and was subsequently on the staff of the ''
Manchester Guardian'', the ''
New York World
The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under pub ...
'', and for many years the ''Daily News'', resigning from the last-named paper in 1899.
His first novel ''The Democracy'' (3 vols, 1876) was published under the pseudonym of Whyte Thorne. His second novel ''
The Island'' (1888) was about a utopian life on
Pitcairn Island; it attracted little attention until, years afterwards, its successor, ''
No. 5 John Street'' (1899), made him famous; the earlier novel was then republished. ''No. 5 John Street'' has the character from the first novel return to London, but has no money, and describes the low-life of London. Later works were ''The Yellow Van'' (1903), ''Ring in the New'' (1906), ''All Moonshine'' (1907). In 1919, Whiteing coined the precursor term to the name of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, which he referred to as "World War No. 2." He predicted that this war would arise some time in the future to resolve the social upheaval caused by
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
Whiteing died 29 June 1928 in Hampstead and is buried in the
Parish Church of St. John-at-Hampstead,
Church Row, London near his son Richard Clifford (1870–1923).
Family
Whiteing's autobiography, ''My Harvest'', written in 1915, led many to believe he was an only child, whose mother had died in the 1840s when he was quite young. However family historian, Kathleen Whiteing Fitzgerald, revealed that Whiteing actually had three siblings. There were two brothers, Robert & George, who had both lived well into adulthood and a sister Elizabeth who died as an infant. Fitzgerald noted that in the 1861 London census Whiteing, then 20 years old, was listed as living with both of his parents and his younger brother George. Richard's father, William, died in Beverley in 1876, and his mother died in Kensington in 1884.
In 1869 Whiteing married Helen Watson Harris (1848-1921), the ward/niece of
Townsend Harris
Townsend Harris (October 4, 1804 – February 25, 1878) was an American merchant and politician who served as the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the " Harris Treaty" between the US and Japan and is credited as the d ...
, US Ambassador to Japan. To their marriage was born an only child in 1872, Richard Clifford Whiteing. Their son married Ellen Marie Louise "Nell" du Maurier in 1908, the niece of illustrator and novelist
George du Maurier
George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier (6 March 1834 – 8 October 1896) was a Franco-British cartoonist and writer known for work in ''Punch'' and a Gothic novel ''Trilby'', featuring the character Svengali. His son was the actor Sir Gerald ...
and cousin of actor
Gerald du Maurier
Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier (26 March 1873 – 11 April 1934) was an English actor and manager. He was the son of author George du Maurier and his wife, Emma Wightwick, and the brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1903, he ...
.
After Whiteing's separation from Helen, he lived for many years with journalist and children's author
Alice Corkran. He was also friends with her sister Henriette, who wrote an intimate account of him in her ''Celebrities and I''.
[Henriette Corkran (1902) ''Celebrities and I'', Hutchinson's, London]
References
;Attribution
*Vincent Brome, ''Four Realist Novelists: Arthur Morrison, Edwin Pugh, Richard Whiteing, William Pett Ridge'' (1965), 'Writers and their Work'
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whiteing, Richard
1840 births
1928 deaths
English male journalists
19th-century English novelists
20th-century English novelists
English male novelists
19th-century English male writers
20th-century English male writers