William Innell Clement (15 January 1780 – 24 January 1852) was an English newspaper proprietor.

Biography

Clement was born in the parish of

St Clement Danes St Clement Danes is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London. It is situated outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. Although the first church on the site was reputedly founded in the 9th century by the Danes, the curren ...

and baptised at

St Anne's Church, Soho Saint Anne's Church serves in the Church of England the Soho section of London. It was consecrated on 21 March 1686 by Bishop Henry Compton as the parish church of the new civil and ecclesiastical parish of St Anne, created from part of the par ...

. Starting as a

newsagent A newsagent's shop or simply newsagent's or paper shop (British English), newsagency (Australian English) or newsstand ( American and Canadian English) is a business that sells newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, snacks and often items of local ...

at a young age, he soon became one of the leading vendors in London. In 1814, Clement moved into the newspaper publishing business by purchasing ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'', at that time a comparatively obscure Sunday paper. Within two years, Clement accepted government funds in return for providing editorial support. Endeavoring to make ''The Observer'' the leading Sunday newspaper, Clement delayed printing the paper until between four and five o'clock on the Sunday morning in order to include the latest news. Yet the paper remained dependent on government funds, with nearly half of its print run given away for free as 'specimen copies'. During this time Clement was also the publisher of the '' Weekly Political Register'', which was edited by

William Cobbett William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign ...

. He stood by Cobbett when the latter man left for the United States on the suspension of the '' Habeas Corpus Act'' in 1817. Three years later, Clement sold the ''Weekly Political Register'' and his newsvending business to W. H. Smith. He then bought the ''

Morning Chronicle ''The Morning Chronicle'' was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London. It was notable for having been the first steady employer of essayist William Hazlitt as a political reporter and the first steady employer of Charles Dickens as a journalist. ...

'' on the death of James Perry in 1821 for £42,000, raising most of the purchase money by bills. The transaction involved him with Messrs. Hurst & Robinson, the publishers, and their bankruptcy in 1825 hit him very hard. After losing annually on the ''Morning Chronicle'', Clement sold it to John Easthope in 1834 for £16,500. More profitable for Clement was his ownership of '' Bell's Life in London'', which he purchased between 1824 and 1825. Under the editorship of

Vincent George Dowling Vincent George Dowling (1785–1852) was an English journalist. He was an influential figure in the development of sports journalism, who also worked covertly as a government informer. Life The son of Vincent Dowling (1756–1825), an Irish journ ...

, ''Bell's Life in London'' became a leading sporting paper, with its circulation growing from 3,000 to over 30,000 in the first two decades of Clement's ownership.D. M. Griffiths, "Clement, William Innell", in ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 12, p. 23. Clement died suddenly of

apoplexy Apoplexy () is rupture of an internal organ and the accompanying symptoms. The term formerly referred to what is now called a stroke. Nowadays, health care professionals do not use the term, but instead specify the anatomic location of the bleedi ...

at Hackney on 24 January 1852. He is buried at

Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederic ...

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clement, William Innell 1780 births 1852 deaths 19th-century British newspaper publishers (people) English businesspeople in retailing Businesspeople from London The Observer people