"The newspapers and periodicals occupy an unrivalled position as repositories of the general life of Victorian England. They represent the complete national range and they represent it on every imaginable topic. Their growth during the century is a direct response to demands for information, for discourse, for instruction, for propaganda, for entertainment, for platforms, each demand corresponding to a new facet of national life. One might almost claim that an attitude, an opinion, an idea, did not exist until it had registered itself in the press, and that an interest group, a sect, a profession, came of age when it inaugurated its journal. The years that we call Victorian are best mirrored in the serial publications — literature, argument, the tastes and preoccupations of just about every level and sort of society, all display themselves in the newspapers and journals.... There is an extraordinary outburst in education and entertainment which expressed itself naturally in journalism." — Michael Wolff, p. 26
Note: Much of the information about the women editors and journalists here comes from the 1893-1894 profiles published in the Lady's Pictorial. Click on each item to go to a more substantial description of the individual's work.
Left: The Fraserians, an etching by Daniel Maclise (1806-1870) in Fraser's Magazine, January 1835. Right: Regina's Maids of Honour, an etching by Maclise (1806-1870) in the same magazine, in January 1836.
Editors
- Mrs (Eliza Davis) Aria (1866–1931), fashion editor for Hearth and Home, and fashion writer for many other periodicals
- Mrs. Ada S. (Sarah) Ballin (1863–1906), widely known as a writer and lecturer on health matters, she published and edited the well established Baby: the Mother's Magazine, the only magazine of its kind
- Mary Braddon (1835-1915), editor of Temple Bar and Belgravia
- Shirley Brooks (1816-1874), editor of Punch
- Eneas Sweetland Dallas (1827-1879), editor of Once A Week
- Charles Dickens (1812-1870), editor of Bentley's Miscellany, Household Words and All the Year Round
- Emily Faithfull (1835-1895), closely involved in the periodical publications of her Victoria Press, particularly the Englishwoman's Journal and Victoria Magazine
- Lillie Harris (Mrs. J. C. Cozens-Williams, 1863–1921), followed the Jack the Ripper murders and became the first lady to be admitted to the Institute of Journalists, and lady editor of the Weekly Telegraph
- Florence Fenwick-Miller (1854–1935), editor of Outward Bound and later editor of the Woman's Signal, 1895-1899, and writer for many periodicals and newspapers on women's progress, best known as a weekly columnist of the Illustrated London News, 1886-1918
- Jean Ingelow (1820-1897), best known as a poet, but also important as the editor of the Youth's Magazine, generally considered to be the first influential Evangelical journal for the young
- Louis Jennings (1836-1893), Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times
- William Jerdan (1782-1869), editor of the Sun and then the Literary Gazette
- Douglas Jerrold (1803-1857), prolific journalist and editor of Lloyd's Weekly Magazine
- Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), briefly editor of Fraser' Magazie and contributor to Politics for the People, the Christian Socialist, Macmillan's Magazine, etc.
- William James Linton (1812-1897), involved with various publishing initiatives, e.g. The English Republic and The Illuminated Magazine
- William Maginn (1794-1842), editor of the Standard
- Mrs. (Blanche de Montmercy) Conyers Morrell (1847–1909), started the quarterly Home Art Work, gathering support from Walter Crane, Selwyn Image, and others. Among her many other writings was a long series on Antique Needlework for the Lady's Pictorial
- Caroline Norton (1808-1877), edited The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée from 1832-37
- William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919), art critic and editor of The Germ
- Mrs Stannard (Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard, née Palmer; 1856–1911; "John Strange Winter"), first president of the first women's Press Club established in London, the Writers' Club, mainly a novelist, but also publisher and editor of Winter's Weekly
- W.T. Stead (1849-1912), editor of the Northern Echo, and later of the Pall Mall Gazette (1880-1889), and Review of Reviews (1890-1912).
- Mrs. (Charlotte) Talbot-Coke (1843–1922), started Hearth and Home and contributed to many other periodicals
- Tom Taylor (1817-1880), editor of Punch
- William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), editor of the short-lived National Standard, contributor to Fraser's Magazine, the Morning Chronicle, and, most important, Punch
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), editor of Women's World
- Charlotte Yonge (1823-1901), editor of th Monthly Packet
Contributors / Reviewers / Columnists
- Mrs. (Lucie) Armstrong (née Cobbe; 1851–1907; "Comme il Faut"; "L. H. A." in The Sketch; "Zingara"; "Our Special Commissioner" for the "Fashions and Fancies" column in the Sunday Times), writing also for Dickens's Household Words, and other periodicals, becoming an etiquette writer (she was the second cousin of Frances Power Cobbe, see below)
- Mary Adelaide Belloc (later Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Belloc-Lowndes, 1868–1947), writer for Pall Mall Gazette, Westminster Gazette, and many other, a member of the Society of Authors, and, from its foundation, the committee of the Writers' Club
- Mrs. Alfred Berlyn (née Emma Ambrosia Annie Close, 1862–1943; "Vera"), writer for the Lady's Pictorial and other periodicals and journals
- (Mary Frances) Billington (1862–1925), contributor to many periodicals and staff writer for the Echo, Daily Graphic etc. and commissioned to tour India to report on the progress of women there
- Susan (Anne) Carpenter (1850?–1929; "Mrs. Pepys"), London correspondent for the Melbourne Leader, contributor to a range of other newspapers and periodicals, including The Times, and the only woman employed by the Press Association
- Mrs. (Eliza) Erskine Clarke (born 1837; aged 74 and a widow living with her daughter Mary Clarke, a painter and artist, in the 1911 census; listed on https://swj1894.org under the name Mrs. R. H. [Richard Henry] Clarke as a member of the Society of Women Journalists, 1894/1895–1910/1911), described as a very capable "all round" journalist. Contributed to Fraser's Magazine, Society, Vanity Fair, etc.
- Miss Clifford ("Rirette," English born; based in Paris), correspondent with many periodicals and newspapers on "art, the theatre, fashion, and social gossip," decorated in France with the Order of "Les Palmes," and so an "Officier d'Académie"
- Lady Colin Campbell (née Gertrude Elizabeth Blood; 1857–1911), among others writings, art critic of Vanity Fair, the World, and the Art Journal
- Francis Power Cobbe (1822-1904), leader writer for the evening Echo, and prolific contributor to many periodicals
- Mrs. (Marie?) Babington Corr (1865?–?), one of the original staff writers for the Sketch, writer for a variety of newspapers and periodicals on a large variety of topics, including hunting, theatre and art
- Emily Crawford (1841–1915), Paris correspondent of Truth and the Daily News
- John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), writer for the Quarterly Review
- Miss (Ella Jane) Curtis (1840–1910; "Blue Stocking"), columnist for the Illustrated Penny Post and contributor to the Penny Illustrated
- "Mrs. Roy Devereux" (née McAdam; married name: Rosalie Devereux Pember, 1867–1947), contributor of reports, reviews, articles for The Sketch, the Star, and (on fashion) for the St. James's Budget, though like many other women writers preferred to write on "other matters than those of exclusively feminine interest"
- Ella Hepworth Dixon (1857–1932), contributor to The World, the Sunday Times, the St. James's Gazette, Woman, London Society etc., on travel, art and other subjects, as well as to the Lady's Pictorial
- (Marion) Hepworth Dixon (1856–1936; Ella's older sister), contributor of art criticism to the Art Journal, the Magazine of Art, etc.
- Catharine Drew (1825/6–1910; "Aurora"), sister of an important Irish architect (Sir Thomas Drew), started by helping to edit The Irish Builder. Later, she initiated in Belfast News Letter "a new departure in journalism, a column especially devoted to women's interests, and the "Ladies' Letter," which became a popular feature in many popular journals
- Charlotte O'Conor Eccles (1863–1911), on the staff of the London edition of the New York Herald, writer for many other newspapers and periodicals, and on various committees, such as the Institute of Journalists' Orphan fund.
- George Eliot (1819-1880), contributor to the Coventry Herald and assistant editor and writer for the Westminster Review
- Hulda Friedrichs (1857?–1927), German-born multi-lingual interviewer and writer for the Pall Mall Gazette, Westminster Gazette and others on many topics, from the Irish Question and German politics to acting
- Lady Violet Greville (1842–1932), prolific journalist who wrote for a great variety of periodicals, including the World, Vanity Fair, the Morning [Post], Good Words, Fraser's Magazine, the Whitehall Review, and the Girls' Own Paper
- Mrs (Charlotte Eliza) Humphry (née Graham, 1843–1925; "Madge"), gossip columnist for many newspapers and periodicals, including the Globe
- Mrs. (Agatha Georgina Florence) Eliot James (née Vyvyans; 1845?–1919), contributed to The Times, The Queen, etc, and very many others on political, agricultural, commercial, social, and domestic subjects, preferring anonymity
- Mrs. Jack Johnson (née McMaster; the first honorary secretary of the Society of Women Journalists, and a member, 1894/1895–1903/1904; "Ethel" and "Levana"), art and literary subjects etc for the Queen, Woman, the Gentlewoman etc.
- Hannah Lawrance (1795-1895), staff writer on the Athenaeum and contributor to Household Words
- Percival Leigh (1813-1889), staff-writer on Household Words, who adapted Michael Faraday's lectures for a popular readership
- Elizabeth Lynn Linton (1822-1898), writer for the Morning Chronicle and many others
- (Annie) Ethel Lloyd (1858/9–1936; half-sister of Mrs. Humphry), writer on fashion and society matters for the Daily Telegraph, Leeds Mercury and others
- Mrs. Mackenzie-McKenna (1868–1929; writes as Ethel Mackenzie-McKenna in the United States and Ethel Morell Mackenzie in England), better known in America than in England, where she wrote for some leading syndicates, and also the Ladies' Home Journal. But later she also began writing for the provincial press in England
- Harriet Martineau (1828-1897), editorial writer for the Daily News
- Mrs. (Alice) Meynell (née Thompson; 1847–1922), well-known writer, and art critic for the Art Journal, the Magazine of Art, etc.
- Miss Florence Mulleneux (1871–?; married Harold Catterson Smith, 7 August 1895), still very young but writer of the "Ladies Page" in the Sketch since it started.
- (Nannie Lambert) Power O'Donoghue (1843–1940; "Amazon"), contributor on Irish matters and sports to many periodicals, including the Graphic and the Illustrated London News
- Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897), contributor to Blackwood's
- Miss Charlotte Robinson (1859?–1901), staff writer for Queen
- F.G. Stephens, art critic and writer for the Athenaeum, The Germ, the Critic, the London Review, Macmillan's Magazine, etc
- Miss Annie S. (Shepherd) Swan (Mrs. Burnett-Smith; 1859–1943), children's writer, novelist but also, while not actually editing it, did "a good deal of work in her magazine, The Woman at Home"
- (Mary) Whitley (née Alford, 1854/5–1931; "Butterfly"), contributer to the Lady's Pictorial and a range of others, including the Pall Mall Gazette
Links to Related Material
- Open Access Nineteenth-Century Periodicals
- Eneas Sweetland Dallas on the rise of the periodical press
- The Power of the Press and Victorian Art Criticism
Bibliography
Note: Assembled with grateful acknowledgement to the useful and wide-ranging "Works Cited" at the end of Sally Mitchell's "Victorian Journalism in Plenty" (319-21) with several omissions and some more recent additions.
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Brake, Laurel, and Julie Codell, eds. Encounters in the Victorian Press: Editors, Authors, Readers. New York: Palgrave, 2005.
Brake, Laurel, Aled Jones and Lionel Madden, ed. Investigating Victorian Journalism. London: Macmillan, 1990.
Cantor, Geoffrey, and Sally Shuttleworth, eds. Science Serialized: Representations of the Sciences in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.
Clarke, Bob. From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers to 1899. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
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Demoor, Marysa. Their Fair Share: Women, Power, and Criticism in the Athenaeum, from Millicent Garrett Fawcett to Katherine Mansfield, 1870–1920. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000.
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Morton, Peter. The Busiest Man in England: Grant Allen and the Writing Trade, 1875–1900. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Mussell, James. Science, Time and Space in the Late Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press: Movable Types. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
Mutch, Deborah. English Socialist Periodicals 1880–1900: A Reference Source. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.
Onslow, Barbara. Women of the Press in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000.
Phegley, Jennifer. Educating the Proper Woman Reader: Victorian Family Literary Magazines and the Cultural Health of the Nation. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004.
Plunkett, John. Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch. New York: Oxford UP, 2003.
Slater, Michael. Douglas Jerrold: 1803–1857. London: Duckworth, 2002.
Tusan, Michelle Elizabeth. Women Making News: Gender and Journalism in Modern Britain. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
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Wolff, Michael. "Charting the Golden Stream: Thoughts on a Directory of Victorian Periodicals. Victorian Periodicals Newsletter, 4(13): 23-38. JSTOR. Institutional access: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20084906.
Created 10 December 2024