Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/358

 pioneer in London. Edward Levy undertook his first public work in connexion with these paper duties, for he served with Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright on a committee the report of which finally determined their abolition. He had personal knowledge of almost every department of a newspaper. He could set type; he had ‘handled copy’; he could turn a neat paragraph, and dictate a telling leader. His main interest soon focussed on politics, and he was much in the lobby of the House of Commons, where he shared with John Thadeus Delane [q.v.], of The Times, the special privilege, rarely granted, of standing at the bar of the House of Lords with members of the House of Commons.

The dominant idea of those who conducted the Daily Telegraph was to break away from the ponderous stiffness of the older journalism, to brighten the paper by a more lively presentation of the news, and to appeal to the sentiment of the reader as well as to chronicle facts. The Dickens influence was strong, and the humanized newspaper succeeded so well that by 1871 the circulation of the Daily Telegraph had risen to the then unprecedented figure of 200,000 copies a day. (Sir) Edwin Arnold, George Augustus Henry Sala, Edward Litt Laman Blanchard, Thornton Leigh Hunt, Frederick Greenwood, William Beatty Kingston, (Sir) Campbell Clarke, Joseph Bennett, James Macdonnell, Francis Charles Lawley, and Clement William Scott were amongst the best known of those who helped Lawson to achieve and maintain ‘the largest circulation’, but none did more than (Sir) John Merry Le Sage, managing editor for thirty years.

Long before his father's death in 1888 the principal direction of the paper had been in Lawson's hands; he had indeed been managing proprietor and sole controller since 1885. A good judge of men, he knew also how to get the best work out of them. His instructions never left a doubt of his meaning. A few sentences scribbled in pencil in a large, round hand on the back of a used envelope would often serve to convey his wishes. His decisions were rapid and final; his industry tireless. Although few men loved social pleasures more, or had a greater aptitude for them, he rarely failed for a long stretch of years to read and pass the proofs of all the principal articles which were to appear in the next morning's issue.

Throughout the 'sixties and 'seventies the Daily Telegraph consistently supported Mr. Gladstone. The name of ‘the People's William’, which at one time enjoyed a wide vogue, was coined by Lawson himself. On occasion he sought personally to influence the liberal leader in the direction of social reform. The day before Mr. Gladstone was to make an eagerly awaited speech in Greenwich in 1874 Lawson called and sent in the suggestion through the chief liberal whip that Gladstone should commit the party to a campaign for the better housing of the working classes. Gladstone admitted the importance of the subject, but doubted the suitability of state action. When, in 1878, Gladstone's Eastern policy became strongly anti-Turkish, the Daily Telegraph transferred its support to Lord Beaconsfield largely owing to the influence of Edwin Arnold. The Home Rule controversy widened the paper's breach with the liberals. Lawson always claimed that the paper was strictly independent and not bound or pledged to any leader or party, but from 1886 onwards it supported, without swerving, the unionist and imperialist causes and a ‘strong navy’ policy.

In politics Lawson was a realist of accommodating temper, prepared to fight hard for his political principles while reasonable hope of maintaining them remained, but not prepared to tie himself or his paper to a dead cause. He was always for settling differences rather than for fighting them out to the bitter end. He was the friend of reasonable men in either camp. A warm advocate of social reform, he had strong sympathies with those who were suffering or in distress. Tolerant himself, he opposed intolerance in others.

Lawson took a special interest in the organization of appeals to the public on behalf of great national and charitable efforts. The first of the Daily Telegraph's many shilling funds was raised to relieve the Lancashire cotton famine distress in the winter of 1862–1863. The last great appeal which Lawson personally initiated was the Daily Telegraph soldiers' and sailors' widows and orphans fund during the Boer War, which raised and distributed the sum of £255,275. The 1887 jubilee was celebrated by a fund for the entertainment of 30,000 London school children in Hyde Park. Lawson received the Queen on that occasion, and the function was one of the most successful and pleasing of the jubilee ceremonies. Another effort produced £44,570 for the Prince of Wales's hospital fund for London in commemoration of the Queen's diamond jubilee in 1897.

Among the more notable enterprises 332