John Walter (the younger)

John Walter (born February 23, 1776 in Battersea , London , † July 28, 1847 in London) was a British publisher and politician. Born the son of the Times ' founder , John Walter (the Elder) , he established the paper as a major British daily newspaper in the first half of the 19th century.

John Walter (the younger)

Life

John Walter first attended the "Merchant Taylors' School" and then Trinity College (Oxford) . From 1798 his older brother William took part in the management and in 1803 he became the sole owner, manager and editor of the Times .

The press system that John Walter found in England around 1800 was still in its infancy. The early Times was one of many newspapers , all of which were neglected and whose newsworthiness was far below that of the official newsletters. They did not yet have independent agencies to check the truth of the news. It was only when the newspapers came into conflict with the extremely strict "libel law", which it often did, that they received greater public attention. Newspaper makers were often punished with pillory or prison for political criticism . This had happened to his own father in 1789 and 1799.

John Walter had resolved to change this miserable state of the English press , which he did excellently. When he died in 1847, he left behind a daily newspaper of international stature, feared by British politicians, cabinet members and Prime Ministers, and which every cosmopolitan person abroad had to read to find out what was going on in the British Empire.

From his father he had inherited a fearless, aggressive, and independent nature. But he also had untiring energy and a high degree of determination that his father had not possessed to the same extent. He co-ran the Times with his brother William for five years before becoming its sole editor.

In the same year he made the new direction of the paper clear by drawing opposition to Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger . This led to the withdrawal of government advertisements and the loss of the position of "printer of the customs authorities", which his father had been awarded in 1787. Walter found himself exposed to the animosity and rank of influential government circles. The fact that he was not deterred and intimidated showed his steadfast and courageous character. Walter wanted a long-term restructuring of the English press system.

Walter employed young, reform-minded journalists such as B. Henry Crabbe Robinson, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and Thomas Barnes . The Times turned away from official government announcements and gradually developed its own news infrastructure.

In 1814 John Walter bought a double-acting cylinder printing machine from the book printer and inventor Friedrich Koenig and operated it with a steam engine. On November 29, 1814, the first edition of the Times was produced with Koenig's "double machine". With the help of this high-speed press , 7,000 copies of the Times were printed and sold daily , an enormous number for the time. The new machine printing technology that Walter used for the first time triggered a revolution in newspaper production.

1809 John Walter appointed the lawyer John Stoddart (* 1773, † 1856) to the editor of the Times . He was followed by Thomas Barnes (* 1785; † 1841) and finally John Thadeus Delane (* 1817; † 1877).

Like Walter, Thomas Barnes was a staunch advocate of independent reporting. In 1819 he published some articles by journalists John Edward Taylor (* 1791, † 1844) and John Tyas on the " Peterloo Massacre " with the support of John Walter . On August 16, 1819, a protest rally against grain tariffs was violently broken up by cavalry in Manchester. 11 demonstrators were killed and over 400 injured. The Times clearly criticized the way in which the British government under Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (* 1770–1828), reacted to the struggle for political reform.

After the "Peterloo massacre", the Times advocated fundamental parliamentary reform . In the House of Commons, the conservative Tories repeatedly complained about the long-term newspaper campaign. In the debate of March 7, 1832, the conservative opposition leader Sir Robert Peel described the Times as "the most important and powerful advocate of reform" in Great Britain. When the Reform Act was finally passed in 1832, the Times exuberantly commented that it was "the greatest event in modern history . "

After 1832, however , the Times gradually changed its political orientation. John Walter and Thomas Barnes argued with the radical-liberal London newspaper Morning Chronicle about the content of the reform law and about future government policy. The Morning Chronicle was close to the radical Whigs that called for deep democratic reforms. John Walter and his journalists took much more moderate positions, criticizing "the slavish devotion" with which they believed the Morning Chronicle supported the Whig administration of Charles Gray . Walter and Barnes spoke to the leaders of the Conservative opposition, and when they pledged not to reverse the reform law, they journalistically favored the Tory government that Sir Robert Peel formed in 1834.

In 1832 John Walter, who had bought a property called Bear Wood in Berkshire , was elected to Parliament for that county and held that mandate until 1837. In 1841 he returned to Parliament, this time for Nottingham , but was replaced the next year deposed by petition. John Walter was married twice. His eldest son, John , who was married to his second wife, Mary Smythe, also worked for the Times . He died in London on July 28, 1847.