Rand Daily Mail

History

The Rand Daily Mail was founded in 1902 by businessman Harry Cohen and managed by editor Edgar Wallace. Cohen purchased the linotype machines and printing presses for the newspaper from Emmanuel Mendelssohn, equipment from the defunct The Standard and Diggers' News. Extravagant operational expenses by Wallace almost bankrupted the newspaper and Cohen had to step in to limited spending. It was bought by mining magnate Abe Bailey in 1905 after the death of Harry Cohen, after the intervention of Lord Milner who feared it would be purchased by Boer nationalists, and Bailey formed a company called the Rand Daily Mails Ltd. Bailey leased the paper out to three people, George H. Kingswell, who became the general manager, Ralph Ward Jackson its editor and A. V. Lindbergh its distributor as CNA chairman. The three men would go on to form The Sunday Times which worked in conjunction with the paper. By 1910, the company help form the Reuters branch called the Reuters South African Press Agency.