The Diaries of Anthony Hewitson, Provincial Journalist, Volume 1

Andrew Hobbs

Description

Anthony Hewitson (1836-1912) was a typical Victorian journalist, working in one of the largest sectors of the periodical press, provincial newspapers. His diaries, written between 1862 and 1912, lift the veil of anonymity hiding the people, processes and networks involved in the creation of Victorian newspapers. They also tell us about Victorian fatherhood, family life, and the culture of a Victorian town.

Diaries of nineteenth-century provincial journalists are extremely rare. Anthony Hewitson went from printer’s apprentice to newspaper reporter and eventually editor of his own paper. Every night he jotted down the day’s doings, his thoughts and feelings. The diaries are a lively account of the reporter’s daily round, covering meetings and court cases, hunting for gossip or attending public executions and variety shows, in and around Preston, Lancashire.

Andrew Hobbs’s introduction and footnotes provide background and analysis of these valuable documents. This full scholarly edition offers a wealth of new information about reporting, freelancing, sub-editing, newspaper ownership and publishing, and illuminates aspects of Victorian periodicals and culture extending far beyond provincial newspapers.

The Diaries of Anthony Hewitson, Provincial Journalist are an indispensable research tool for local and regional historians, as well as social and political historians with an interest in Victorian studies and the media. They are also illuminating for anyone interested in nineteenth-century social and cultural history.

Sujets

• Media Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Open Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 26 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800642393
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 18 Mo

Extrait

THE DIARIES OF ANTHONY HEWITSON, PROVINCIAL JOURNALIST

The Diaries of Anthony Hewitson, Provincial Journalist
Volume 1: 1865–1887
Edited by Andrew Hobbs





https://www.openbookpublishers.com
Introduction and Notes © 2022 Andrew Hobbs
The diaries of Anthony Hewitson are reproduced by permission of the owner, Lancashire Archives and the copyright holder, Margaret Mullen




This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Andrew Hobbs (ed), The Diaries of Anthony Hewitson, Provincial Journalist: Volume 1: 1865–18 87. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2022, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0262
Further details about the Creative Commons license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web
Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0262#resources
The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, the Marc Fitch Fund, the University of Central Lancashire and the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire have generously contributed to the publication of this volume.
ISBN Paperback: 9781800642362
ISBN Hardback: 9781800642379
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781800642386
ISBN Digital ebook (EPUB): 9781800642393
ISBN Digital ebook (AZW3): 9781800642409
ISBN XML: 9781800642416
Digital ebook (HTML): 9781800646889
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0262
Cover image: Anthony Hewitson’s carte-de-visite (1860s), by Robert Pateson. Courtesy of The Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Library, Preston, CC BY-NC-ND. Cover design by Anna Gatti.

To Margaret Dickinson, who has made it all such fun and to the memory of Anthony Wright



Fig. 1. Carte-de-visite of a young Anthony Hewitson (1860s), by C. Sanderson, courtesy of Martin Duesbury, CC BY.

Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction xv
Editing method xlv
Maps xlvii
‘My Life’ 1
Family history and brief autobiography 11
Hewitson’s reminiscences of his time on the Preston Guardian 15
The diaries 17
1865 19
1866 67
1867 133
1868 183
1872 201
1873 275
1874 339
1875 391
1881 417
1884 445
1885 491
1887 543
People frequently mentioned 615
Glossary of technical, dialect and archaic words 629
Chronology 631
Biographical sketch of Hewitson from the Yorkshire Bibliographer , 1888 633
Hewitson’s diaries and other papers in Lancashire Archives 637
Books written or edited by Hewitson 639
Bibliography 641
Books read by Hewitson 649
Index 655

List of Illustrations
Fig. 1.
Carte-de-visite of a young Anthony Hewitson (1860s), by C. Sanderson, courtesy of Martin Duesbury, CC BY.
vii
Fig. 2.
Map of Lancashire. Dates in brackets show years when Hewitson lived there (by Joanna Hobbs, used with permission, CC BY 4.0).
xlvii
Fig. 3.
Hewitson’s Preston c. 1860s (by Joanna Hobbs, used with permission, CC BY 4.0).
xlviii
Fig. 4.
Title page of 1865 volume, in Hewitson’s hand (Lancashire Archives DP/512/1/1), courtesy of Lancashire Archives, CC BY.
18
Fig. 5.
Explanation of contractions, and first entry, 1868 diary (Lancashire Archives DP/512/1/4), courtesy of Lancashire Archives, CC BY.
182
Fig. 6.
Advertisement for Hewitson’s freelance reporting work, Preston Chronicle 19 September 1868, p.4, listing some of the publications for whom he wrote.
198
Fig. 7 .
The Prince of Wales (right, standing, in top hat) at the ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the Albert Edward Dock, Preston, 17 July 1885. Hewitson (front centre, turning to face the camera) is sitting at the press bench with other reporters. Photograph by Copland, Preston; used with permission of Lancashire County Council Red Rose Collections, https://redrosecollections.lancashire.gov.uk/view-item?key=RVtd&WINID=1628090674700#zRdtwxhYhLgAAAF7EU5-xA/217731 , CC BY.
516
Fig. 8.
Family tree of Anthony Hewitson and Margaret Wilson (information provided by Margaret Dickinson, diagram by the editor). CC BY.
612

Acknowledgements
I have the doyen of local historians, Dr Alan Crosby, to thank for telling me about the Hewitson diaries in 2007, soon after I started my PhD. Staff at Lancashire Archives put me in touch with Hewitson’s great-great-niece, Margaret Dickinson, who was transcribing the diaries with another descendant, Pauline Wainwright. Thanks to both of them, particularly Margaret, who has been an enthusiastic and generous collaborator throughout, sharing her knowledge of Hewitson’s family and much else besides.
Bruce Jackson and Jacquie Crosby, former heads of Lancashire Archives, and their archivists and searchroom staff have been helpful and encouraging. Thanks to the late Marian Roberts, who started the campaign to bring the diaries back to Lancashire, to the Friends of Lancashire Archives (FLA), who bought the diaries for the archives, to Rob Blackmore for selling them (and for a great deal of other help), and to FLA members Elaine Berry, Bob Chapman, Sue Seabridge and Pam Singleton, for checking the transcriptions. Many people have helped by deciphering handwriting and shorthand (Kathryn Baird), and commenting on the text (Barbara Tilley, Jim Burscough, Peter Towers, Steve Tate, Mark Buckley and the anonymous peer reviewers). Actor John Hickey and playwright Derek Martin brought the diaries alive with a play to mark the centenary of Hewitson’s death in 2012, with help from Cristina Neacsu and Malcolm Sim.
I am grateful to the many scholars, particularly from the Research Society for Victorian Perriodicals (RSVP) and the Black Horse History Society, for encouragement. Thanks to Laurel Brake, Martin Duesbury, Craig Horner, Martin Hewitt, Leslie Howsam, Andrew King, Mairtin O’Cathain, Dave Russell, Malcolm Shifrin, and Catherine Waters. RSVP generously supported my research with a Curran Fellowship and a Peterson Fellowship. The University of Central Lancashire supported this project with a sabbatical and a contribution towards publication costs. The Marc Fitch Fund and the Historic Society of Lancashire & Cheshire have also contributed to publication costs. Thanks also to Open Book Publishers, including Lucy Barnes, Rosalyn Sword and Alessandra Tosi, and two anonymous reviewers.
I would also like to thank Margaret Mullen, fiancée of the late Anthony Wright, Hewitson’s great-grandson, who kindly gave permission for this publication of the diaries, as copyright holder.

Introduction

© 2022 Andrew Hobbs, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0262.21
The first entry in the diary of Anthony Hewitson records the death of his three-year-old daughter, the second describes her burial, before which Hewitson climbed into the family grave to look through a glass window in the coffin at the face of another daughter who had died at the same age two years earlier. The third entry, three days later, celebrates the birth of his first son. These extremes of life and death could explain why he began his diary when he did. He had also recently witnessed the hardships of the Lancashire Cotton Famine. He was almost certainly writing ‘to cheat the clock and death of all the things that [he] had lived’, afraid that he might leave nothing behind. 1
Hewitson’s first surviving attempt at writing his life was made three years earlier, in 1862, at the age of 25, when he began a short account of his childhood and early years with these anxious musings on mortality: To die, to be buried and forgotten is brutish. Humanity is too great … to be finally covered over by its own flesh and blood with the ashes of forgetfulness. Oblivion is repulsive … To my own family I will preserve myself. Those whom I have loved and lived for shall have, in this, an index of the events which have surrounded me, the thoughts which have influenced my mind, and the sentiments which have, more or less, animated my heart. 2
These 17 volumes of diaries and a short memoir, written between 1862 and 1912, reveal Hewitson as a loving Victorian father and husband, but their significance comes from his work, as a newspaper reporter and editor. Anthony Hewitson was a typical Victorian journalist, working in one of the largest sectors of the periodical press, provincial newspapers. His diaries lift the veil of anonymity hiding the processes and networks involved in the creation of Victorian newspapers, helping historians to interpret this widely used source. They present and contextualise a wealth of new information about reporting, free