The Pall Mall Gazette
Front page of the first edition
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| Type | Daily (afternoons) |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | G. Smith (1865–80) H. Thompson (1880–92) W. Astor (1892–1915) H. Dalziel (1916–23) |
| Founded | 7 February 1865 |
| Language | English |
| Ceased publication | 1923 |
| Headquarters | London |
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 into the Evening Standard in 1923.
The Pall Mall Gazette took the name of a fictional newspaper conceived by William Makepeace Thackeray. Pall Mall is a street in London where many gentlemen's clubs are located, hence Thackeray's description of this imaginary newspaper in his novel The History of Pendennis (1848–1850):
"We address ourselves to the higher circles of society: we care not to disown it—the Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen for gentlemen; its conductors speak to the classes in which they live and were born. The field-preacher has his journal, the radical free-thinker has his journal: why should the Gentlemen of England be unrepresented in the Press?
Under the ownership of George Smith from 1865 to 1880, with Frederick Greenwood as editor, the Pall Mall Gazette was a Conservative newspaper. Greenwood resigned in 1880 when the paper's new owner wished the paper to support the policies of the Liberal Party.
William Thomas Stead's editorship from 1883 to 1889 saw the paper cover such subjects as child prostitution; their campaign helped get the government to increase the age of consent from 13 to 16 in 1885. This was one of the first examples of investigative journalism, and Stead was arrested for "unlawful taking of a child" (when he purchased thirteen-year-old Eliza Armstrong from her mother for the meager price of £5, to highlight how easy it was to buy children). It distressed the owner Thompson who dismissed Stead, and hired the handsome society figure Henry Cust, editor from 1892 to 1896, who returned the paper to its Conservative beginnings.
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