TheDaily Herald was aBritish daily newspaper, published daily in London from 1912 to 1964 (although it was weekly during theFirst World War).[1] It was published in the interest of thelabour movement and supported theLabour Party. It underwent several changes of management before ceasing publication in 1964,[2] when it was relaunched asThe Sun, in its pre-Murdoch form.
In December 1910, the printers' union, theLondon Society of Compositors (LSC), became engaged in an industrial struggle to establish a 48-hour workweek and started a daily strike bulletin calledThe World.Will Dyson, anAustralian artist in London, contributed a cartoon. From 25 January 1911, it was renamed theDaily Herald and was published until the end of the strike in April 1911. At its peak, it had daily sales of 25,000.
Ben Tillett, thedockers' leader, and other radical trade unionists were inspired to raise funds for a permanent labour movement daily, to compete with the newspapers that championed the two main political parties, theLiberals andConservatives, but independent of the officialLabour Party and theTrades Union Congress, which were planning a daily of their own (launched as theDaily Citizen in October 1912).
The initial organising group included Tillett,T. E. Naylor of the LSC,George Lansbury, socialist politician,Robert Williams of theTransport Workers,W. N. Ewer andFrancis Meynell. Retaining the strike sheet name, they formed aDaily Herald company. Readers and supporters formed local branches of the Daily Herald League, through which they had their say in the running of the paper.
The first issue appeared on 15 April 1912, edited by William H. Seed. A key feature was Dyson's cartoons, which made a contribution to the paper's political tone. Its politics were broadlysyndicalist: it gave unconditional support to strikers and argued for a socialist revolution based on workers' self-organisation in trade unions. It also gave strong support tosuffragettes and to anti-colonial struggles, especially inIreland. Early issues dealt with the loss of the RMSTitanic, emphasising the disproportionate loss of life among crew members and poor third-class passengers, and demonstrating the distinct perspective of the new paper.
Staff writers included W. P. Ryan, Langdon Everard andGeorge Slocombe. The editor of the Women's Page was Margaret Travers-Symons, andKatharine Susannah Prichard wrote for it.[3]Vance Palmer's poems were used on the front page.G. K. Chesterton was a frequent contributor. His brotherCecil andHilaire Belloc were occasional contributors. After Seed was removed as editor,Rowland Kenney, the brother ofAnnie Kenney; C. Sheridan Jones; and finallyCharles Lapworth held the position.
In June 1913, theDaily Herald company was forced into liquidation. Lansbury and Charles Lapworth formed a new company, the Limit Printing and Publishing Company. (When the Liberal leaderLloyd George was asked a question about theHerald, he declared, "That paper is the limit.")
The shortfall in production costs was guaranteed by wealthy friends of Lansbury, and Francis Meynell joined the board as their representative. From December 1912 until August 1914, one of the main financial supporters wasH. D. Harben, also a founder of theNew Statesman. From this point, the members of the Daily Herald League had no formal influence on the paper.
In late 1913, Lapworth was asked by the other two board members to resign as editor. Lansbury and the paper's financial backers were disturbed by Lapworth and other writers' attacks on individuals, both in the establishment and the labour movement. "Hatred of conditions by all means, but not of persons" was how Lapworth quoted Lansbury. The aftermath was aired in the letter pages ofThe New Age between December 1913 and April 1914.
The new paper struggled financially but somehow survived, with Lansbury playing an ever-increasing role in keeping it afloat.
Under Lansbury, theHerald took an eclectic but relentlessly militant political position and achieved sales of 50,000–150,000 a day. Butwar in August 1914—or rather the subsequent split on the left whether to support or oppose the war—radically reduced its constituency. Lansbury and his colleagues, core of the anti-war left, decided to go weekly. The paper played a key role in the campaign against the war for the next four years. It was in the forefront of the movement against conscription and supported conscientious objectors; and it welcomed theRussian Revolutions ofFebruary andOctober 1917. There were notable journalistic scoops, most famously its story in November 1917 on "How they starve at the Ritz", an exposé ofconspicuous consumption by the rich at a time of national hardship. The story was extensively reprinted in leaflets and some historians believe that it pushed the government into introducing compulsoryrationing.[4][5]
TheHerald resumed daily publication in 1919, and again played a role propagandising for strikes and against armed intervention inRussia amid the social turmoil of 1919–21. When the radical wave subsided, theHerald found itself broke and unable to continue as an independent left daily. Lansbury handed over the paper to theTrades Union Congress and theLabour Party in 1922. The newspaper had begun to publish theBobby Bear cartoon strip in 1919.
In August 1920,Lev Kamenev, a leading member of theBolshevik regime visiting London as part of the negotiations that led to the March 1921Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement, sent a telegram addressed toLenin in Moscow that was intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence. The telegram stated that Kamenev had paid £40,000.00 to theDaily Herald, and a further payment of £10,000 would be made shortly.[6]
Historical copies of theDaily Herald are available to search and view in digitised form at theBritish Newspaper Archive.[7]
TheHerald was the official organ of theTrade Union Congress from 1922, during which point the fledglingLabour Party brought inHamilton Fyfe, who recruited prestigious journalists such asDouglas Cole (better known as G.D.H. Cole) andEvelyn Sharp, who were supportive of socialism. He left in 1926 over disputes regarding what to publish, at which pointFrederick Salusbury was appointed acting editor-in-chief. Prior to Fyfe's resignation, Salusbury had served as a columnist at theDaily Express, where he helped create the Express' famousBeachcomber gossip column withDominic Wyndham Lewis. During his brief time as acting editor, Salusbury began to attract middle- and upper-class readership, although the publication was primarily marketed to tradesmen.
Between 1923 and 1964, the newspaper awarded theOrder of Industrial Heroism, popularly known as the "Workers' VC," to honour examples of heroism carried out by ordinary workers.[8]
The TUC sold a 51 per cent share of theHerald toOdhams Press, publisher ofThe People, a Sunday paper, in 1930. Odhams (then run byLord Southwood[9]) was interested in using its presses during the week; the TUC wanted Odhams' expertise in promoting newspapers. A promotion campaign ensued, and in 1933, theHerald became the world's best-selling daily newspaper, with certified net sales of 2 million. This accomplishment set off a war with moreconservative London papers, such as theDaily Express.
TheDaily Herald strongly condemned theNazi-Soviet Pact and theSoviet invasion of Finland. In an editorial about the latter, the paper stated:
Now finally Stalin's Russia sacrifices all claims to the respect of the working class movement...The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is dead. Stalin's new imperialist Russia takes its place.[10][11]
TheHerald's sales were static or in decline during the post-war period, but a survey in 1958 suggested that it had the highest level of appreciation of any newspaper among its almost exclusivelyworking class readership.[12] Amongst the oldest and poorest people living in Britain, 59% of them were male, the highest proportion of any newspaper being published at the time.[13] According toRoy Greenslade, the editorial staff were firmly entrenched between those advocating populism or politics with no "synthesis" between the positions possible.[14]
TheInternational Publishing Corporation acquired Odhams shares around 1961 when they took over that company and the minority stake owned by the TUC in 1964.[15] In 1955, the title's share of total newspaper circulation and advertising sales were both 10.8%, but this had declined to 8.1% and 3.5%, respectively, by 1964.[16]
Following a study commissioned from market researcherMark Abrams, whose conclusions suggested reasons why theHerald was in decline, it was reborn asThe Sun in 1964 under editorSydney Jacobson. Roy Greenslade, though, has suggested that theDaily Herald was, in fact, losing readers to its own stable mate, theDaily Mirror, rather than because of social changes.[17] By 1969, the originalSun had fewer readers than theHerald at the end of its existence. The newspaper was sold toRupert Murdoch'sNews Limited (the holding group for all of his interests at the time), and its format and (eventually) its politics were significantly altered.
The photographic archive of theDaily Herald, including the work of photographers such asJames Jarché, is at theNational Science and Media Museum inBradford. In 2022, nearly 50,000 images from the Daily Herald Archive were digitised and published online in partnership withGoogle Arts & Culture.[18]
Source: D. Butler and A. Sloman,British Political Facts, 1900–1975, London: Macmillan, 1975, p. 378
