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Hulton
This page considers the Hulton family media interests.
It covers -
Hulton and the Berrys
Sir Edward George Hulton (1869-1925) joined his father's
Manchester newspaper business in 1885. His father Edward
H Hulton had worked at the Manchester Guardian
- profiled here - before establishing
The Sporting Chronicle in 1871, The Athletic
News in 1875, the Manchester Sunday Chronicle
in 1885 and the Manchester Evening Chronicle
in 1897. The latter competed with Scott's Manchester Evening
News.
Edward G launched the Daily Dispatch in 1900
and the Daily Sketch in 1909. He became a baronet
in 1921, at which time his interests included the Evening
Standard, Daily Sketch and Sunday Herald,
11 provincial titles, printers and the Topical
Film Company.
In 1923 Hulton - after twenty years of disagreement with
Northcliffe and Rothermere (apparently
on as much of a personal as a political or commercial
basis) - refused to dispose of the chain to the Harmsworths.
He instead offloaded them for £6 million to Beaverbrook,
who claimed to be acting as a "friend" but transferred
the titles to a joint venture with Rothermere. The two
magnates subsequently sold most of the papers to Allied
Newspapers (Iliffe and the Berrys).
Accounts of the transaction vary. The Evening Standard
claims that
Hulton
lay, mortally ill, in his ground floor bedroom. His
family guarded the front door to keep the predatory
Lord Beaverbrook out, but Beaverbrook strolled into
the bedroom through the french windows.
He had a proposition: £1 million down, £5
million more within the week. He wrote the details on
a sheet of Midland Bank paper, Hulton signed it and
Beaverbrook strolled back through the french windows.
The family, discovering the coup, rang the bank at once.
It was as they supposed: Beaverbrook did not have even
the first million. Within 20 minutes he thought he had.
He borrowed it from the bank and within days had sold
the whole chain to Lord Rothermere, keeping the Evening
Standard as commission.
Picture Post, Hulton Press and Hulton Picture
Library
Sale of the chain allowed Edward H Hulton (1906-1988)
to build the Hulton Press group. Although it was primarily
concerned with contract printing, reflected in its eventual
absorbtion by the International Publishing Corporation
(IPC), the 'Third Edward' was also interested in journal
publishing.
His inheritance allowed him to launch the Farmer's
Weekly, Housewife and Nursing Mirror
(now part of EMAP) under the Hulton
Press and to acquire periodicals such as Lilliput.
In 1938 he launched Picture Post, the photojournalism
title that was the UK counterpart of Henry Luce's
Life. In the 1950s he launched a range of childrens
comics and journals, including The Eagle, Girl,
Swift and Robin.
Picture Post closed in 1957. Many of Hulton's
printing, book, journal and comic publishing interests
were acquired by Odhams Press in 1960, with that company
being rebadged as Longacre Press. Longacre was bought
by IPC, which passed through the maws of Reed
and Robert Maxwell.
Post has an afterlife in the form of the Hulton Picture
Library, originally established as the magazine's archive,
later acquired by the BBC and then
by Getty Images.
Hulton's nephew Jocelyn Stevens (1932- ), acquired Queen
as a 25th birthday present for himself in 1957 at a cost
of £10,000. He was Managing Director of the Evening
Standard from 1969 to 1972, of the Daily Express
from 1972–1974, of Beaverbrook
Newspapers from 1974 to 1977 and Express Newspapers from
1977 to 1981.
the Standard and Evening Standard
The London daily Standard was founded by businessman
Charles Baldwin in 1827 as a voice of conservatism but
was distinguished by under first editor Dr Stanley Giffard
for an emphasis on news, in particular commercial news
from the Continent. The Times reportedly characterised
it as "a stupid and priggish print". In 1857
it was acquired - along with the Morning Herald
and St James Chronicle - for £16,500 by
James Johnstone. The new proprietor relaunched the evening
edition as the Evening Standard, after successfully
slashing the morning edition's price to a penny - foreshadowing
the methods and success of Northcliffe.
In 1904 the Johnstone family sold the two titles for £700,000
to Cyril Arthur Pearson (1866-1921), founder of Pearsons
Weekly (1890) and the Daily Express (1900)
and author of the 1902 Handwriting as an Index to
Character. Pearson, who was unrelated to the founders
of the Pearson group profiled
elsewhere on this site, had used profits from Pearsons
Weekly to expand into provincial newspaper publishing,
building a chain of dailies in Manchester, Birmingham
and other locations.
He amalgamated the Evening Standard with his
St James Gazette but was unable to boost profitability
and circulation amid the fin de siecle circulation wars
and - after floating shares in the two Standards
during 1908 - sold those papers in 1910 to Tory MP Davison
Dalziel and Sir Alexander Henderson, who in turn sold
to Edward Hulton in 1914. Pearson's provincial papers,
such as the Birmingham Daily Gazette, were offloaded
from 1910 onwards.
Hulton closed the morning Standard in 1916 and
sold the Evening Standard as part of the 1923
deal. Beaverbrook (who had acquired Pearson's Daily
Express in 1916 after it absorbed the Pall Mall
Gazette that year) gained control of the Evening
Standard, which remained a key element of his group.
The Evening Standard merged with competing title
the Evening News; it was acquired by the Daily
Mail group in the 1980s.
studies
There has been no major biography of the three Hultons.
Insights are offered by volume two of Stephen Koss's The
Rise & Fall of the Political Press in Britain (London:
Hamish Hamilton 1984)
For the Standard see Plant Here the Standard
(Basingstoke: Macmillan 1995) by Dennis Griffiths
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