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William Thomas Stead (5 July 184915 April 1912) was a British newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of
investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years res ...
, became a controversial figure of the
Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwa ...
. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns whilst editor of ''
The Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed in ...
'', including his 1885 series of articles, '' The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon''. These were written in support of a bill, later dubbed the " Stead Act", that raised the
age of consent The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is unable to legally cla ...
from 13 to 16. Stead's "new journalism" paved the way for the modern
tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid The Sopwith Tabloid an ...
in Great Britain. He has been described as "the most famous journalist in the British Empire". He is considered to have influenced how the press could be used to influence public opinion and government policy, and advocated " Government by Journalism".Joseph O. Baylen
"Stead, William Thomas (1849–1912)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., September 2010. Retrieved 3 May 2011.
He was known for his reportage on child welfare, social legislation and reformation of England's criminal codes. Stead died in the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic''.


Early life

Stead was born in Embleton, Northumberland, the son of the Reverend William Stead, a poor and respected
Congregational Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...
minister, and Isabella (née Jobson), a cultivated daughter of a
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
farmer. A year later the family moved to
Howdon Howdon is a largely residential area in the eastern part of Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England. It consists of High Howdon and the smaller settlement of East Howdon. Much of the High Howdon area was formerly called Willington prior to post-World ...
on the
River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Wat ...
, where his younger brother, Francis Herbert Stead, was born. Stead was largely educated at home by his father, and by the age of five he was already well-versed in the
Holy Scriptures Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pra ...
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. From 1862 he attended Silcoates School in
Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...
, until 1864, when he was apprenticed to a merchant's office on the Quayside in
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
where he became a clerk.


''The Northern Echo''

Stead contributed articles to the fledgling liberal
Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington underw ...
newspaper '' The Northern Echo'' from 1870, and despite his inexperience, was appointed the editor of the newspaper in 1871. Aged just 22, Stead was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. Stead used Darlington's excellent railway connections to his advantage, increasing the newspaper's distribution to national levels. Stead was always guided by a moral mission, influenced by his faith, and wrote to a friend that the position would be "a glorious opportunity of attacking the devil". In 1873, he married his childhood sweetheart, Emma Lucy Wilson, the daughter of a local merchant and shipowner; they would eventually have six children together. In 1876, Stead joined a campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Act, befriending the feminist Josephine Butler. The law was repealed in 1886. He gained notoriety in 1876 for his coverage of the Bulgarian atrocities agitation. He is also credited as "a major factor" in helping Gladstone win an overwhelming majority in the 1880 general election.


''The Pall Mall Gazette''

Stead was appointed assistant editor of the Liberal '' Pall Mall Gazette'' (a forerunner of the ''
London Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...
'') in 1880, and he helped transform a traditionally conservative newspaper "written by gentlemen for gentlemen". When its editor,
John Morley John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, (24 December 1838 – 23 September 1923) was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor. Initially, a journalist in the North of England and then editor of the newly Liberal-leani ...
, was elected to Parliament, Stead took over the role (1883–1889). When Morley was made Secretary of State for Ireland, Gladstone asked the new cabinet minister if he were confident that he could deal with that most distressful country. Morley replied that, if he could manage Stead, he could manage anything. Over the next seven years Stead would develop what
Matthew Arnold Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, lit ...
dubbed "The New Journalism". His innovations as editor of the ''Gazette'' included incorporating maps and diagrams into a newspaper for the first time, breaking up longer articles with eye-catching subheadings, and blending his own opinions with those of the people he interviewed. He made a feature of the ''Pall Mall'' extras, and his enterprise and originality exercised a potent influence on contemporary journalism and politics. Stead's first sensational campaign was based on a Nonconformist pamphlet, ''The Bitter Cry of Outcast London''. His lurid stories of squalid life in the slums had a wholly beneficial effect on the capital. A Royal Commission recommended that the government should clear the slums and encourage low-cost housing in their place. It was Stead's first success. He also pioneered the use of the
interview An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...
in British journalism—although other interviews had appeared in British papers before—with his interview with General Gordon in 1884. In 1884, Stead pressured the government to send his friend General Gordon to the Sudan to protect British interests in Khartoum. The eccentric Gordon disobeyed orders, and the siege of Khartoum, Gordon's death, and the failure of the hugely expensive
Gordon Relief Expedition The Nile Expedition, sometimes called the Gordon Relief Expedition (1884–85), was a British mission to relieve Major-General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, Sudan. Gordon had been sent to the Sudan to help Egyptians evacuate from Sudan ...
was one of the great imperial disasters of the period. After General Gordon's death in Khartoum in January 1885, Stead ran the first 24-point headline in newspaper history, "TOO LATE!", bemoaning the relief force's failure to rescue a national hero.''The Sunday Times'' (London), 13 May 2012 Sunday Edition 1; "National Edition Fleet Street's crusading villain; The Victorian editor whose love of sensationalism set the tone for the tabloids for a century Scandalmonger", 40–42. During the following year, he managed to persuade the British government to supply an additional £5million to bolster weakening naval defences, after which he published a series of articles. Stead was not a
hawk Hawks are birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. They are widely distributed and are found on all continents except Antarctica. * The subfamily Accipitrinae includes goshawks, sparrowhawks, sharp-shinned hawks and others. This subfa ...
, instead believing Britain's strong navy was necessary to maintain world peace. He distinguished himself in his vigorous handling of public affairs and his brilliant modernity in the presentation of news. However, he is also credited as originating the modern journalistic technique of creating a news event rather than just reporting it, as his most famous "investigation", the Eliza Armstrong case, was to demonstrate. In 1886, he began a campaign against
Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet, PC (4 September 1843 – 26 January 1911) was an English Liberal and Radical politician. A republican in the early 1870s, he later became a leader in the radical challenge to Whig control of the Lib ...
over his nominal exoneration in the Crawford scandal. The campaign ultimately contributed to Dilke's misguided attempt to clear his name and his consequent ruin. Stead employed Virginia Crawford, and she developed a career as a journalist and writer, researching for other Stead authors, but never wrote on her own case or Dilke in any way.


Eliza Armstrong case

In 1885, in the wake of Josephine Butler's fight for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, Stead entered upon a crusade against
child prostitution Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdictions, child p ...
by publishing a series of four articles entitled " The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon". As part of his investigation, he arranged the "purchase" of Eliza Armstrong, the 13-year-old daughter of a chimney sweep. In his subsequent articles, Stead referred to Eliza as "Lily." Her real name came out during Stead's trial for procuring. The first of his four articles was trailed with a warning guaranteed to make the ''Pall Mall Gazette'' sell out. Copies changed hands for 20 times their original value and the office was besieged by 10,000 members of the public. The popularity of the articles was so great that the Gazette's supply of paper ran out and had to be replenished with supplies from the rival ''Globe''. Though his action is thought to have furthered the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, his successful demonstration of the trade's existence led to his conviction for
abduction Abduction may refer to: Media Film and television * "Abduction" (''The Outer Limits''), a 2001 television episode * " Abduction" (''Death Note'') a Japanese animation television series * " Abductions" (''Totally Spies!''), a 2002 episode of an ...
and a three-month term of imprisonment at Coldbath Fields and Holloway prisons. He was convicted on technical grounds that he had failed to first secure permission for the "purchase" from the girl's father. The "Maiden Tribute" campaign was the high point in Stead's career in daily journalism. The series inspired
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
to write '' Pygmalion'', and to name his lead character Eliza. Another of the characters described, the "Minotaur of London", has been suggested as having inspired '' Jekyll and Hyde''.


''Review of Reviews'' and other ventures

Stead resigned his editorship of the ''Pall Mall'' in 1889 in order to found the '' Review of Reviews'' (1890) with Sir George Newnes. It was a highly successful non-partisan monthly. The journal found a global audience and was intended to bind the empire together by synthesising all its best journalism. Stead's abundant energy and facile pen found scope in many other directions in journalism of an advanced humanitarian type. This time saw Stead "at the very height of his professional prestige", according to E. T. Raymond. He was the first editor to employ female journalists. Stead lived in Chicago for six months in 1893-4, campaigning against brothels and drinking dens, and published ''If Christ Came to Chicago''. Beginning in 1895, Stead issued affordable reprints of classic literature under such titles as ''The Penny Poets'' and ''Penny Popular Novels'', in which he "boil ddown the great novels of the world so that they might fit into, say, sixty-four pages instead of six hundred". His ethos behind the venture pre-dated
Allen Lane Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fict ...
's
Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. In 1896, Stead launched the series ''Books for the Bairns'', whose titles included fairy tales and works of classical literature. Stead became an enthusiastic supporter of the peace movement, and of many other movements, popular and unpopular, in which he impressed the public generally as an extreme visionary, though his practical energy was recognised by a considerable circle of admirers and pupils. Stead was a pacifist and a campaigner for peace, who favoured a "United States of Europe" and a "High Court of Justice among the nations" (an early version of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
), yet he also preferred the use of force in the defence of law. He extensively covered the
Hague Peace Conference The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 are a series of international treaties and declarations negotiated at two international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions were amon ...
s of 1899 and 1907; for the latter he printed a daily paper during the four-month conference. He has a bust at the
Peace Palace , native_name_lang = , logo = , logo_size = , logo_alt = , logo_caption = , image = La haye palais paix jardin face.JPG , image_size = , image_alt = , image_caption = The Peace Palace, The Hague , map_type = , map_alt = , m ...
in
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
. As a result of these activities, Stead was repeatedly nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolo ...
. With all his unpopularity, and all the suspicion and opposition engendered by his methods, his personality remained a forceful one, in both public and private life. He was an early imperial idealist, whose influence on
Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his Bri ...
in South Africa remained of primary importance; many politicians and statesmen, who on most subjects were completely at variance with his ideas, nevertheless owed something to them. Rhodes made him his confidant, and was inspired in his will by his suggestions; and Stead was intended to be one of Rhodes's executors. However, at the time of the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the So ...
Stead threw himself into the Boer cause and attacked the government with characteristic violence, and consequently his name was removed from the will's executors. The number of his publications gradually became very large, as he wrote with facility and sensationalist fervour on all sorts of subjects, from ''The Truth about Russia'' (1888) to ''If Christ Came to Chicago!'' ( Laird & Lee, 1894), and from ''Mrs Booth'' (1900) to
The Americanisation of the World
' (1901). Stead was an Esperantist, and often supported
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...
in a monthly column in ''Review of Reviews''. Enciklopedio de Esperanto, 1933. In 1904 he launched ''The Daily Paper'', which folded after six weeks, and Stead lost £35,000 of his own money (almost £3 million in 2012 value) and suffered a nervous breakdown.


Meeting with William Randolph Hearst

A year before the Spanish–American War W. T. Stead traveled to New York to meet with
William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...
, to teach him Government By Journalism.


Travel to Russia

In 1905, Stead travelled to Russia to try to discourage violence during the
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
, but his tour and talks were unsuccessful.


Spiritualism

In the 1890s, Stead became increasingly interested in
spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase ...
. In 1893, he founded a spiritualist quarterly, '' Borderland'', in which he gave full play to his interest in psychical research. Stead was editor, and he employed Ada Goodrich Freer as assistant editor; she was also a substantial contributor under the pseudonym "Miss X". Stead claimed that he was in the habit of communicating with Freer by
telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...
and
automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spir ...
. The magazine ceased publication in 1897. Stead claimed to be in receipt of messages from the spirit world and, in 1892, to be able to produce automatic writing. His spirit contact was alleged to be the departed Julia A. Ames, an American temperance reformer and journalist whom he met in 1890 shortly before her death. In 1909, he established ''Julia's Bureau'', where inquirers could obtain information about the spirit world from a group of resident mediums. Grant Richards said that "The thing that operated most strongly in lessening Stead's hold on the general public was his absorption in spiritualism". The physiologist Ivor Lloyd Tuckett wrote that Stead had no scientific training and was credulous when it came to the subject of spiritualism. Tuckett examined a case of spirit photography that Stead had claimed was genuine. Stead visited a photographer who produced a photograph of him with an alleged deceased soldier known as "Piet Botha". Stead claimed the photographer could not have come across any information about Piet Botha; however, Tuckett discovered that an article in 1899 had been published on Pietrus Botha in a weekly magazine with a portrait and personal details. In the early 20th century,
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
and Stead were duped into believing that the stage magicians
Julius and Agnes Zancig Julius and Agnes Zancig were stage magicians and authors on occultism who performed a spectacularly successful two-person mentalism act during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Julius Zancig (1857–1929) – born Julius Jörgensen in Copen ...
had genuine psychic powers. Both Doyle and Stead wrote the Zancigs performed
telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...
. In 1924 Julius and Agnes Zancig confessed that their mind reading act was a trick and published the secret code and all the details of the trick method they had used under the title of ''Our Secrets!!'' in a London newspaper. Ten years after the ''Titanic'' went down, Stead's daughter Estelle published ''The Blue Island: Experiences of a New Arrival Beyond the Veil,'' which purported to be a communication with Stead via a medium, Pardoe Woodman. In the book, Stead described his death at sea and discussed the nature of the afterlife. The manuscript was produced using automatic writing, and Ms. Stead cited as proof of its authenticity the writer's habit of going back to cross "t's" and dot "i's" while proof-reading, which she said was characteristic of her father's writing technique in life.


Death on the ''Titanic''

Stead boarded the ''Titanic'' for a visit to the United States to take part in a peace congress at
Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built ...
at the request of President
William Howard Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...
. Survivors of the ''Titanic'' reported very little about Stead's last hours. He chatted enthusiastically through the 11-course meal that fateful night, telling thrilling tales (including one about the cursed mummy of the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
), but then retired to bed at 10.30 pm. After the ship struck the iceberg, Stead helped several women and children into the lifeboats, in an act "typical of his generosity, courage, and humanity", and gave his
life jacket A personal flotation device (PFD; also referred to as a life jacket, life preserver, life belt, Mae West, life vest, life saver, cork jacket, buoyancy aid or flotation suit) is a flotation device in the form of a vest or suite that is worn by a ...
to another passenger. A later sighting of Stead, by survivor Philip Mock, has him clinging to a raft with
John Jacob Astor IV John Jacob Astor IV (July 13, 1864 – April 15, 1912) was an American business magnate, real estate developer, investor, writer, lieutenant colonel in the Spanish–American War, and a prominent member of the Astor family. He died in the sink ...
. "Their feet became frozen", reported Mock, "and they were compelled to release their hold. Both were drowned." William Stead's body was not recovered. Stead had often claimed that he would die from either lynching or drowning. He had published two pieces that gained greater significance in light of his fate on the ''Titanic''. On 22 March 1886, he published an article titled "
How the Mail Steamer went down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor How may refer to: * How (greeting), a word used in some misrepresentations of Native American/First Nations speech * How, an interrogative word in English grammar Art and entertainment Literature * ''How'' (book), a 2007 book by Dov Seidma ...
", wherein a steamer collides with another ship, resulting in a high loss of life due to an insufficient ratio of lifeboats to passengers. Stead had added: "This is exactly what might take place and will take place if liners are sent to sea short of boats". In 1892, Stead published a story titled "From the Old World to the New", in which a vessel, the ''Majestic'', rescues survivors of another ship that collided with an
iceberg An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...
.


Reputation

Following his death, Stead was widely hailed as the greatest newspaperman of his age. His friend Viscount Milner eulogised Stead as "a ruthless fighter, who had always believed himself to be 'on the side of angels'". His sheer energy helped to revolutionise the often stuffy world of Victorian journalism, while his blend of sensationalism and indignation set the tone for British tabloids. Like many journalists, he was a curious mixture of conviction, opportunism and sheer humbug. According to his biographer W. Sydney Robinson, "He twisted facts, invented stories, lied, betrayed confidences, but always with a genuine desire to reform the world – and himself." According to Dominic Sandbrook, "Stead's papers forced his readers to confront the seedy underbelly of their own civilisation, but the editor probably knew more about that dark world than he ever let on. He held up a mirror to Victorian society, yet deep down, like so many tabloid crusaders, he was raging at his own reflection." According to
Roy Jenkins Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead, (11 November 1920 – 5 January 2003) was a British politician who served as President of the European Commission from 1977 to 1981. At various times a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lab ...
, Stead became "the most sensational figure in 19th-century journalism". A memorial bronze was erected in
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
, New York City, in 1920. It reads, "W. T. Stead 1849–1912. This tribute to the memory of a journalist of worldwide renown is erected by American friends and admirers. He met death aboard the ''Titanic'' April 15, 1912, and is numbered amongst those who, dying nobly, enabled others to live." A duplicate bronze is located on the
Thames Embankment The Thames Embankment is a work of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed marshy land next to the River Thames in central London. It consists of the Victoria Embankment and Chelsea Embankment. History There had been a long history of ...
not far from Temple, where Stead had an office. A memorial plaque to Stead can also be seen at his final home, 5
Smith Square Smith Square is a square in Westminster, London, 250 metres south-southwest of the Palace of Westminster. Most of its garden interior is filled by St John's, Smith Square, a Baroque surplus church, which has inside converted to a concert hall. ...
, where he lived from 1904 to 1912. It was unveiled on 28 June 2004 in the presence of his great-great-grandson, 13-year-old Miles Stead. The plaque was sponsored by the Stead Memorial Society. In his native Embleton, a road has been named "W T Stead Road". In the 2009 video game '' Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors'', Stead's How the Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor'', ''From the Old World to the New'', and his death on the ''Titanic'', is discussed by Akane Kurashiki and Junpei, who debate the possibility that Stead was undergoing
automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spir ...
by connecting to his future self.


Resources


Archives

Fourteen boxes of the papers of William Thomas Stead are held at the
Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers of ...
in Cambridge. The bulk of this collection comprises Stead's letters from his many correspondents including Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
,
William Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
, and
Christabel Pankhurst Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, (; 22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958) was a British suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exil ...
. There are also papers and a diary relating to his time spent in Holloway Prison in 1885, and to his many publications. Papers of William Thomas Stead are also held at The Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics,
Charles Barker Howdill Charles Barker Howdill (1863–1941) was a Leeds architect and photographer, who travelled extensively on the European continent before the First World War and gave hundreds of illustrated magic lantern lectures about his journeys. Howdill was amo ...
(1863–1941) took a colour photograph of Stead "finished in 12 minutes" on 17 January 1912, about three months before Stead's death. It is now in the collections of Leeds Museums and Galleries.


References


Further reading

* Brake, Laurel et al. ''W.T. Stead: Newspaper Revolutionary'' (British Library, distributed by University of Chicago Press; 232 pages; 2013), essays by scholars * Brake, Laurel. ''Stead alone: Journalist, Proprietor and Publisher, 1890–1903'' (British Library Press, 2013). * Eckley, Grace. ''Maiden Tribute: A Life of W. T. Stead'' (2007). * Gill, Clare. " 'I'm really going to kill him this time': Olive Schreiner, WT Stead, and the Politics of Publicity in the Review of Reviews". ''Victorian Periodicals Review'' 46#2 (2013): 184–210. * Goldsworthy, Simon. "English nonconformity and the pioneering of the modern newspaper campaign: including the strange case of WT Stead and the Bulgarian horrors". ''Journalism Studies'' 7#3 (2006): 387–402. * Luckhurst, Roger, et al. eds. ''WT Stead: Newspaper Revolutionary'' (The British Library Publishing Division, 2013). * Prévost, Stéphanie. "WT Stead and the Eastern Question (1875–1911); or, How to Rouse England and Why?" ''Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century'' 19 (2013)
online
* * Regard, Frederic. "The Sexual Exploitation of the Poor in W.T. Stead's 'New Journalism': Humanity, Democracy and the Tabloid Press". ''Narrating Poverty and Precarity in England'' (B. Korte and F. Regard eds). Berlin, De Gruyter, 2014 : 75–91. * Robinson, W. Sydney. ''Muckraker: The Scandalous Life and Times of W.T. Stead, Britain's First Investigative Journalist'' (Biteback Publishing, 2012). * Whyte, Frederic. ''A Life of W.T. Stead'' (2 vol. 1925).


External links


Catalogue
of the W.T. Stead papers at th
Churchill Archives Centre

The W. T. Stead Resource Site

"The Great Educator: a Biography of W.T. Stead"

Online links to works by and about W. T. Stead

Encyclopedia Titanica Biography of W. T. Stead


article by Roy Hattersley
NewsStead: A Journal of History and Literature

Spiritualism by William Thomas Stead and his daughter Estelle

Website of Stead's most recent biographer, W. Sydney Robinson

Cecil J. Rhodes">The Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes, Cecil J. Rhodes
, Edited by Stead
Photograph of William T. Stead, signed
From scrapbook in the Carrie Chapman Catt Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collection Division at the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

A New Portrait of Mr. William T. Stead, Taken in New York
From scrapbook in the Carrie Chapman Catt Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collection Division at the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...
* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stead, William Thomas 1849 births 1912 deaths English Esperantists English male journalists English newspaper editors English pacifists English spiritualists People educated at Silcoates School People from Wallsend Deaths on the RMS Titanic People from Embleton, Northumberland