Abstract
The growing public appetite for royal stories throughout the nineteenth century called for exceptional labour on the part of the special correspondents. The commercial benefits accruing from such coverage were significant, for both the newspaper and its special who could remediate his correspondence into a lucrative commemorative volume. By the 1870s, the number of newspapers and correspondents had increased and competition amongst the specials was growing fierce. In this context, the debate about press representation on the Prince of Wales’s tour of India in 1875–76—the main case study for this chapter—reveals a number of important developments in the newspaper press since the 1850s, including the issue of journalistic access, the increasing importance of personality and continuing debates about the authenticity of special correspondence.
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Notes
- 1.
John Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 200.
- 2.
George Augustus Sala, The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala (London: Cassell and Company, 1896), pp. 488–91, p. 602, p. 88, p. 96.
- 3.
Plunkett, p. 221.
- 4.
John Black Atkins, The Life of Sir William Howard Russell: The First Special Correspondent, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1911), 1: p. 263.
- 5.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘Russia: The Coronation of the Emperor’, Times, 9 September 1856, 6–7, 7. The allusion to the ‘Hertfordshire Incumbent’ refers to Joseph William Blakesley who became widely known for his letters to the Times under this signature on social and political topics of the day.
- 6.
[George A. Sala,] ‘A Journey Due North: The Czar’s Highway’, Household Words, 15 November 1856, 422–27, 424.
- 7.
From Our Special Reporters, ‘The Grand Volunteer Review’, Daily Telegraph, 25 June 1860, 4–6, 4.
- 8.
‘The Grand Volunteer Review’, 5.
- 9.
P. D. Edwards, Dickens’s ‘Young Men’: George Augustus Sala, Edmund Yates and the World of Victorian Journalism (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), p. 103.
- 10.
Ralph Straus, Sala: The Portrait of an Eminent Victorian (London: Constable, 1942), p. 153.
- 11.
Sala, p. 385.
- 12.
‘Echoes of the Week’, Illustrated London News, 21 March 1863, 279.
- 13.
Sala, p. 385; ‘Echoes of the Week’, 21 March 1863, 279.
- 14.
Sala, p. 385. The plan of St George’s Chapel shows Frith adjacent to the altar, but makes no mention of Russell, although there is a blank place between Lady Cremorne and Lady Byron. W. H. Russell, A Memorial of the Marriage of H.R.H. Albert Edward Prince of Wales and H.R.H. Alexandra Princess of Denmark; the Various Events and the Bridal Gifts, Illustrated by Robert Dudley (London: Day and Son, 1863), p. 103. The section of the Times report dealing with the choir notes the place—‘first and best, and nearest to the altar’ –given to Frith, who is to paint ‘the great picture of the marriage for the Queen, and for the copyright of which a higher sum has been given already than has ever yet been offered for any picture’; there is no reference to Russell. ‘The Marriage of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra of Denmark’, Times, 11 March 1863, 5–7, 5–6.
- 15.
Henry Vizetelly, Glances Back through Seventy Years: Autobiographical and Other Reminiscences, 2 vols (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1893), 2: p. 77; [George A. Sala,] ‘Breakfast in Bed: No, VII’, Temple Bar, 8 (July 1863), 70–79, 75.
- 16.
Quoted in Atkins, 2: p. 118.
- 17.
Atkins, 2: p. 118.
- 18.
‘THE MARRIAGE of H.R.H the Prince of WALES and H.R.H the Princess ALEXANDRA’, Morning Post, 9 March 1863, 4. The same advertisement appeared in the Standard and Globe.
- 19.
Plunkett, p. 230.
- 20.
Chandrika Kaul, ‘Monarchical Display and the Politics of Empire: Princes of Wales and India 1870–1920s’, Twentieth-Century British History, 17 (2006), 464–88, 465.
- 21.
‘From Our London Correspondent’, Nottinghamshire Guardian, 23 April 1875, 6.
- 22.
‘English Affairs’, New York Times, 8 October 1875, 1.
- 23.
G. A. S, ‘Echoes of the Week’, Illustrated London News, 18 September 1875, 291.
- 24.
H. Hazel Hahn, ‘Indian Princes, Dancing Girls and Tigers: The Prince of Wales’s Tour of India and Ceylon, 1875–1876’, Postcolonial Studies, 12 (2009), 173–92, 174.
- 25.
Ruth Brimacombe, ‘The Imperial Avatar in the Imagined Landscape: The Virtual Dynamics of the Prince of Wales’s Tour of India in 1875–76’, in Virtual Victorians: Networks, Connections, Technologies, ed. Veronika Alfano and Stauffer Andrew (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 189–214.
- 26.
‘Cui Bono?’, The World, 13 October 1875, 8.
- 27.
Christopher Hibbert, ‘The Prince of Wales in India’, History Today, 9 (1975), 620–28, 620.
- 28.
‘The Prince of Wales’ Visit to India’, The World, 21 April 1875, 8.
- 29.
‘Court and Fashion’, Belfast News-Letter, 6 August 1875, 4.
- 30.
‘Literary Gossip’, Northern Echo, 23 August 1875, 2.
- 31.
‘From Our London Correspondent’, 27 August 1875, 6.
- 32.
‘London Sayings and Doings’, Wrexham Advertiser, 4 September 1875, 7.
- 33.
‘From Our London Correspondent’, 27 August 1875, 6.
- 34.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Diary of W. H. Russell, 25 May 1875.
- 35.
Charles Beresford, The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, 2 vols (Boston: Little, Brown, 1914), 2: p. 163.
- 36.
‘The Prince of Wales’s Visit to India’, Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 21 August 1875, 118–19, 119.
- 37.
‘London Correspondence’, Belfast News-Letter, 5 October 1875, 3.
- 38.
‘Portraits in Oil: LXI. Mercury’, The World, 22 September 1875, 4–5, 5. Edwards reports that the series was begun by Eustace Clare Grenville Murray and taken over by T. H. S. Escott. Edwards, p. 140. Francis Knollys was Private Secretary to H.R.H.
- 39.
‘Notes and Comments’, Examiner, 11 September 1875, 1.
- 40.
‘English Affairs’, 1.
- 41.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Diary of W. H. Russell, 19 August 1875. My italics.
- 42.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Correspondence from John Thadeus Delane to W. H. Russell, 19 October 1875.
- 43.
Sir Bartle Frere, ‘Letter to Lord Salisbury, 27 August 1875’, India Office Records and Private Papers. Bundle VIII. Sir Bartle Frere II. 25 Mar 1875–31 December 1875, British Library. The anecdote must have been leaked to the press as it is recounted in the Edinburgh Evening News amongst the ‘Notes from the Athenaeum’ on 4 September.
- 44.
‘Letter to Lord Salisbury, 9 October 1875’, India Office Records and Private Papers. Bundle VIII. Sir Bartle Frere II. 25 Mar 1875–31 December 1875, British Library.
- 45.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Diary of W. H. Russell, 21 October 1875.
- 46.
Quoted in Atkins, 2: p. 254.
- 47.
Atkins, 2: p. 254.
- 48.
Albumen photographic print as a cartes-de-visite showing Albert Edward, Prince of Wales in India, RCIN 2107180, in the Royal Collection.
- 49.
‘English Affairs’, 1.
- 50.
Quoted in Atkins, 2: p. 256.
- 51.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Diary of W. H. Russell, 21 October 1875.
- 52.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Prince of Wales in India’, Daily News, 20 December 1875, 2.
- 53.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Prince of Wales in Ceylon: The Prince in Colombo’, Daily News, 4 January 1876, 2.
- 54.
W. Hamish Fraser, The Wars of Archibald Forbes (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 2015), pp. 97–8.
- 55.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Diary of W. H. Russell, 21 November 1875.
- 56.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Letter from W. H. Russell to Delane, J.T., 7 March 1876.
- 57.
‘The Prince of Wales in India’, Saturday Review, 25 December 1875, 795–96, 796.
- 58.
‘The Prince of Wales in India’, Saturday Review, 795.
- 59.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Prince of Wales’, Times, 7 December 1875, 5. Readers were presumably aided in reconstructing the chronology of the tour from differently dated reports by such internal acknowledgement of the varying time lags involved, although Delane also wrote to Russell: ‘Strange to say, that Public is so densely stupid that I doubt whether the telegrams – miraculous as they were – were even quite understood. The last time I dined at Apsley before my illness, I had to explain elaborately and to send for the paper to prove it, that the account they had been reading that day of the entry into Delhi, had all happened yesterday. Nobody had taken it in, and it was thought as [likely] that the Prince’s proceedings at Delhi should appear in the paper of the following day as if he had been at Windsor.’ Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Letter to W. H. Russell, 23 February 1876.
- 60.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Prince of Wales at Baroda’, Times, 21 December 1875, 9–10, 9.
- 61.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Correspondence from J. T. Delane to W. H. Russell, 14 January 1876.
- 62.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Correspondence from J. T. Delane to W. H. Russell, 23 February 1876.
- 63.
Times Newspapers Ltd. Archive. Letter from W. H. Russell to Delane J. T., 24 March 1876.
- 64.
Your Representative, ‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 23 October 1875, 160. The Punch Historical Archive identifies the author of the series as F. C. Burnand.
- 65.
‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 18 December 1875, 254.
- 66.
Your Truthful Representative, ‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 11 December 1875, 248.
- 67.
Your Representative, ‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 30 October 1875, 174–75, 174.
- 68.
‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 1 January 1876, 276–77, 276.
- 69.
‘“Our Representative” in India’, 18 December 1875, 254.
- 70.
‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 22 January 1876, 17.
- 71.
Your Truthful Representative, ‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 5 February 1876, 31–3, 31.
- 72.
‘“Our Representative” in India’, 1 January 1876, 276.
- 73.
Your Own Indian Representative, ‘The Prince’s Visit to India’, Punch, 20 November 1875, 206.
- 74.
‘“Our Representative” in India’, 5 February 1876, 31; ‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 19 February 1876, 61.
- 75.
For reports of the gold umbrella, see: From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Prince of Wales’, Times, 24 January 1876, 9–10, 10; From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Prince of Wales’, Times, 31 January 1876, 6; From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Prince of Wales at Agra’, Daily News, 21 February 1876, 3.
- 76.
‘“Our Representative” in India’, 1 January 1876, 276.
- 77.
‘“Our Representative” in India’, Punch, 11 March 1876, 88.
- 78.
I am indebted to Ruth Brimacombe for this information.
- 79.
‘The Prince of Wales’s Tour’, The Field, 31 March 1877, 371.
- 80.
‘The Prince of Wales’s Tour in India’, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 31 March 1877, 36.
- 81.
‘The Prince of Wales’s Tour: A Diary in India. By W. H. Russell’, Spectator, 5 May 1877, 574.
- 82.
‘The Prince of Wales’s Tour: A Diary in India, by William Howard Russell’, Athenaeum, 31 March 1877, 409–10, 409.
- 83.
‘Russell’s Diary in India’, Saturday Review, 21 April 1877, 494–95.
- 84.
‘The Prince of Wales’s Tour: A Diary in India. By W. H. Russell’, Spectator, 574; ‘The Prince of Wales’s Tour’, The Field, 371.
- 85.
‘The Prince of Wales’s Tour: A Diary in India. By W. H. Russell’, Spectator, 574.
- 86.
‘The Prince of Wales’s Tour’, The Field, 371.
- 87.
‘Current Literature’, The Academy, 14 April 1877, 317.
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Waters, C. (2019). Reporting Royalty. In: Special Correspondence and the Newspaper Press in Victorian Print Culture, 1850–1886. Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03861-8_6
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