Abstract
Although commonly associated with the reporting of conflict, when, in George Augustus Sala’s words, there was ‘no war afoot’, the Victorian special correspondents were routinely deployed to report on domestic events. This chapter examines some of their standard assignments at home, ranging from investigative journalism exposing urban poverty, such as John Hollingshead’s 1861 series on ‘London Horrors’, to reports on annual occasions in the British calendar, such as the ‘Autumn Manoeuvres’ of the army on Salisbury Plain. While the special was less likely to become the hero of his own story in undertaking these less hazardous duties at home, his correspondence about domestic events remained a source of popular appeal, even as it continued to attract criticism for its sensationalism from conservative commentators.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
A., ‘Types of Journalists: I. The Reporter and Special Correspondent’, Journalist, 5 November 1886, 61.
- 2.
Alfred Baker, The Newspaper World: Essays on Press History and Work, Past and Present (London: Pittman, 1890), p. 57.
- 3.
‘Types of Journalists’, 61.
- 4.
Steven Donovan and Matthew Rubery, ‘Introduction’, in Secret Commissions: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism, ed. Steven Donovan and Matthew Rubery (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2012), pp. 9–24, p. 10.
- 5.
Helen Groth, ‘The Soundscapes of Henry Mayhew: Urban Ethnography and Technologies of Transcription’, Cultural Studies Review, 18 (2012), 109–30, 113.
- 6.
John Hollingshead, My Lifetime, 2 vols (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co, 1895), 1: p. 96.
- 7.
Hollingshead, 1: p. 165.
- 8.
‘Our London Correspondent’, Roscommon Journal and Western Impartial Reporter, 2 February 1861, 2.
- 9.
From Our Own Correspondent, ‘France’, Morning Post, 29 January 1861, 5.
- 10.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘Naples, Social and Economical’, Morning Post, 13 March 1861, 5.
- 11.
By Our Special Correspondent, ‘London Horrors: The Back of Whitechapel’, Morning Post, 21 January 1861, 4.
- 12.
By Our Special Correspondent, ‘London Horrors: St George’s-in-the-East’, Morning Post, 22 January 1861, 4.
- 13.
‘London Horrors: St George’s-in-the-East’, 4.
- 14.
‘Our London Correspondent’, 2.
- 15.
By Our Special Correspondent, ‘London Horrors: Clerkenwell and the City Borders’, Morning Post, 2nd ed., 25 January 1861, 5.
- 16.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Lions of Antwerp’, Daily Telegraph, 9 December 1865, 7.
- 17.
Groth, 111.
- 18.
‘Ragged London in 1861’, Literary Gazette , 4 May 1861, 418–19, 418. It is unclear whether the reference is to Mayhew’s republished series, containing daguerreotype engravings, or to his special correspondence in the Morning Chronicle.
- 19.
By Our Special Correspondent, ‘London Horrors: Near King’s Cross’, Morning Post, 26 January 1861, 5.
- 20.
‘London Horrors’, Morning Post, 15 February 1861, 5.
- 21.
‘London Horrors’, 5.
- 22.
‘London Horrors: To the Editor of the Morning Post’, Morning Post, 20 February 1861, 7.
- 23.
‘The Lounger at the Clubs’, Illustrated Times, 23 February 1861, 121.
- 24.
‘London Horrors’, 15 February 1861, 5.
- 25.
Hollingshead, 1: p. 165.
- 26.
Hollingshead, 1: p. 172. He had already been tasked by its commissioners with contributing a historical introduction as postscript to the official catalogue.
- 27.
‘The Opening of the International Exhibition’, Supplement to the Daily News, 2 May 1862, 2–3, 2.
- 28.
‘The Opening of the International Exhibition’, 2 May 1862, 3.
- 29.
From Our Special Reporters, ‘Opening of the Great International Exhibition’, Caledonian Mercury, 2 May 1862, 2.
- 30.
By Our Special Reporters, ‘Opening of the Exhibition of 1862’, Daily Telegraph Supplement, 2 May 1862, 2–3, 2.
- 31.
‘Opening of the Exhibition of 1862’, 2.
- 32.
Sala’s loose quotation of the lines—“Twould have made you crazy to see Esterhazy / All jool’s from his jasey to his di’mond boots’ (Thomas Ingoldsby, The Ingoldsby Legends or Myths and Marvels (London: Richard Bentley, 1876), p. 172)—is a good example of his easy, even careless style, designed to demonstrate his familiarity with a vast range of cultural reference, as Robert Dingley notes elsewhere. Robert Dingley, ‘Introduction’, in The Land of the Golden Fleece: George Augustus Sala in Australia and New Zealand in 1885, ed. Robert Dingley (Canberra: Mulini Press, 1995), pp. vii–xxvi, p. xxi.
- 33.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘Opening of the Great Exhibition of 1862’, Belfast News-Letter, 3 May 1862, 3.
- 34.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Opening of the International Exhibition’, Carlisle Journal, 6 May 1862, 3.
- 35.
‘The Palace of Puffs’, Saturday Review, 3 May 1862, 485–86, 485.
- 36.
‘Opening of the Exhibition of 1862’, 2.
- 37.
‘Opening of the Exhibition of 1862’, 2.
- 38.
‘Echoes of the Week and the International Exhibition’, Illustrated London News, 10 May 1862, 489.
- 39.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Paris Exhibition’, Daily Telegraph, 15 May 1867, 5.
- 40.
George Augustus Sala, The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala (London: Cassell and Company, 1896), p. 497.
- 41.
‘The First Private Hanging’, Daily Telegraph, 14 August 1868, 5. The article carries no by-line; but Sala listed it amongst the special articles ‘not reprinted’ in a manuscript exercise book recording his periodical and newspaper contributions held within the George Augustus Sala Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
- 42.
‘The First Private Hanging’, 5.
- 43.
Sala, p. 496.
- 44.
‘The Private Execution at Maidstone’, Daily News, 14 August 1868, 5.
- 45.
‘The Private Execution at Maidstone’, 5.
- 46.
‘Private Executions Made Public’, Saturday Review, 22 August 1868, 257–58, 258.
- 47.
‘Private Executions’, Pall Mall Gazette, 15 August 1868, 4.
- 48.
‘The First Private Hanging’, 5.
- 49.
‘Private Executions Made Public’, 258.
- 50.
Ralph Straus, Sala: The Portrait of an Eminent Victorian (London: Constable, 1942), p. 211.
- 51.
By an Eye-Witness, ‘The Claimant Collapsing’, Daily Telegraph, 7 March 1872, 3.
- 52.
‘The Claimant Collapsing’, 3.
- 53.
‘The Claimant Collapsing’, 3.
- 54.
‘The Claimant Collapsing’, 3.
- 55.
‘A Retrospect of the Autumn Manoeuvres’, Saturday Review, 21 September 1872, 374–75, 374.
- 56.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Northern Army. A Cavalry Fight’, Standard, 6 September 1872, 6.
- 57.
Howard Bales, ‘Technology and Tactics in the British Army 1866–1900’, in Men, Machines, and War, ed. Ronald Haycock and Keith Neilson (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2006), pp. 21–48, p. 37.
- 58.
W. Hamish Fraser, The Wars of Archibald Forbes (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 2015), p. 67.
- 59.
From Our Special Correspondents, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres’, Times, 26 August 1872, 7–8, 8.
- 60.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Northern Army’, Standard, 30 August 1872, 6.
- 61.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Northern Army. A Night’s Ride with the Cavalry’, Standard, 5 September 1872, 3.
- 62.
From Our Special Correspondents, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: With the Northern Army. Shute’s Dash for the Wiley’, Daily News, 5 September 1872, 2.
- 63.
From a Military Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Southern Army. Downs above Melbury’, Standard, 5 September 1872, 3.
- 64.
‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Northern Army. A Night’s Ride with the Cavalry’, 3.
- 65.
From a Military Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Southern Army. Camp, Tifford Magna’, Standard, 6 September 1872, 6.
- 66.
From Our Special Correspondents, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The First Battle. With the Northern Army’, Daily News, 6 September 1872, 2.
- 67.
From a Military Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Southern Army. The Passage of the Wiley’, Standard, 7 September 1872, 3.
- 68.
From a Military Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Southern Army’, Standard, 31 August 1872, 3.
- 69.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Northern Army. Pewsey’, Standard, 3 September 1872, 6.
- 70.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: Head-Quarters’, Standard, 7 September 1872, 3.
- 71.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Northern Army’, Standard, 2 September 1872, 3.
- 72.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Autumn Manoeuvres: The Northern Army’, Standard, 4 September 1872, 3.
- 73.
‘Lying in State of the Emperor Napoleon’, Daily Telegraph, 15 January 1873, 2.
- 74.
Fraser, p. 70. Sala, p. 582.
- 75.
Specially Reported for the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, ‘Funeral of the Emperor Napoleon: The Lying in State’, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1873, 3.
- 76.
‘Lying in State of the Emperor Napoleon’, 2.
- 77.
‘The Late Emperor Napoleon’, Times, 15 January 1873, 9–10, 9.
- 78.
Specially Reported, ‘Funeral of the Emperor Napoleon’, Sheffield and Rotherham Independent , 16 January 1873, 3. Although ‘Specially Reported’, according to the by-line, the same report was published by the Dundee Courier and Argus’s ‘Own Correspondent’ and appeared in the Liverpool Mercury with the addition of a prefatory paragraph.
- 79.
‘Funeral of the Emperor Napoleon’, Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1873, 2–3, 2.
- 80.
‘Funeral of the Emperor Napoleon’, Daily News, 16 January 1873, 5–6, 5.
- 81.
‘Funeral of the Emperor Napoleon’, Daily Telegraph, 2.
- 82.
‘Funeral of the Emperor Napoleon’, Daily Telegraph, 2.
- 83.
‘Funeral of the Emperor Napoleon’, Daily Telegraph, 2.
- 84.
‘The Late Emperor Napoleon: The Lying in State’, Daily News, 15 January 1873, 5–6.
- 85.
Fraser, p. 38.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Waters, C. (2019). Home News. 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_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03861-8_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-03860-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03861-8
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)