Celebrity Specials on the Lecture Circuit

Waters, Catherine

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-03861-8_7

Catherine Waters⁵

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media ((PSHM))

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Abstract

The arduous demands of the Victorian special correspondent’s work meant that he often became newsworthy in his own right. This chapter examines the celebrity of first-generation specials like William Howard Russell, George Augustus Sala, and Archibald Forbes as they capitalised upon their earlier journalistic exploits by remediating them on the lecture circuit. While Russell found this labour uncongenial, Forbes and Sala undertook lucrative tours to America, Australia, and New Zealand from the late 1870s to the early 1880s. Their success as newspaper heroes on the platform demonstrates the developing cult of personality as a mainstay of the popular press and the rise of celebrity culture in the final decades of the nineteenth century.

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Notes

1.
Archibald Forbes, ‘How I Became a War Correspondent’, English Illustrated Magazine, 7 (April 1884), 450–56, 450.
2.
‘The Special Staff’, Chambers’s Journal of Literature, Science and Art, 11 January 1873, 17–20, 17.
3.
A note in the New York Critic in 1886 also reports that Henry Morton Stanley ‘will lecture at several towns throughout Great Britain in October next, in connection with G. W. Appleton’s lecture bureau’ and that other journalists on his list for the coming season include Archibald Forbes, Justin McCarthy and John Augustus O’Shea. ‘Notes’, Critic, 10 July 1886, 23.
4.
Judy McKenzie, ‘Paper Heroes: Special Correspondents and Their Narratives of Empire’, in Victorian Journalism: Exotic and Domestic, ed. Barbara Garlick and Margaret Harris (Brisbane: Queensland University Press, 1998), pp. 124–40, p. 125.
5.
The growth of the transatlantic lecture tour in the nineteenth century has been traced by Philip Collins, Amanda Adams and Tom Wright amongst others. Philip Collins, ‘“Agglomerating Dollars with Prodigious Rapidity”: British Pioneers on the American Lecture Circuit’, in Victorian Literature and Society: Essays Presented to Richard D. Altick, ed. James R. Kincaid and Albert J. Kuhn (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984), pp. 3–29; Amanda Adams, Performing Authorship in the Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Lecture Tour (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014); Tom F. Wright, Lecturing the Atlantic: Speech, Print and an Anglo-American Commons 1830–1870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
6.
Adams, p. 6.
7.
‘Lectures and Lecturing’, Meliora, 2 (1860), 197–209, 198.
8.
John Black Atkins, The Life of Sir William Howard Russell: The First Special Correspondent, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1911), 1: p. 265. One provincial newspaper reported that Russell ‘is to receive £10,000 from Mr Beale’ and ‘on the night of his first lecture £1000 was turned away from the doors’. ‘Miscellanea’, Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 6 June 1857, 4.
9.
Willert Beale, The Light of Other Days Seen through the Wrong End of an Opera Glass, 2 vols (London: Bentley, 1890), 1: p. 256.
10.
Beale, 1: p. 257.
11.
Henry How, ‘Illustrated Interviews No. 18: William Howard Russell’, Strand, 4 (July 1892), 566–80, 574.
12.
‘MR WILLERT BEALE begs to announce’, Era, 3 May 1857, 1.
13.
‘Mr Russell’s Personal Narrative’, Standard, 12 May 1857, 1.
14.
‘Mr Russell’s Narrative of the War’, Daily News, 15 May 1857, 5.
15.
‘Mr W. Russell’s Lectures’, Evening Mail, 18 May 1857, 6.
16.
‘Willis’s Rooms: Mr W. H. Russell’s Personal Narrative’, Morning Chronicle, 12 May 1857, 5.
17.
Anne-Julia Zwierlein, ‘The Spectacle of Speech: Victorian Popular Lectures and Mass Print Culture’, in The Making of English Popular Culture, ed. John Storey (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 165–83.
18.
‘Mr W. Russell’s Lectures’, Standard, 19 May 1857, 1; ‘Mr Russell’s Personal Narrative of the Campaign in the Crimea’, Standard, 25 May 1857, 1.
19.
‘Mr Russell’s Personal Narrative’, Standard, 12 May 1857, 1.
20.
‘Mr William Russell’, Illustrated London News, 16 May 1857, 476.
21.
‘Public Amusements: Mr Russell’s Lectures’, Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 17 May 1857, 8.
22.
[Shirley Brooks,] ‘Russell’s Lectures’, Punch, 30 May 1857, 219.
23.
‘Mr Russell’s Personal Narrative’, 12 May 1857, 1.
24.
‘Mr W. H. Russell’s Personal Narrative’, Morning Advertiser, 15 May 1857, 3.
25.
‘Mr W. H. Russell and His Personal Narrative’, Leeds Times, 31 October 1857, 3.
26.
J. W. C., ‘William Howard Russell’, Glasgow Herald, 16 September 1857, 2. The article is reprinted from the Dublin University Review.
27.
‘Mr W. H. Russell’s Lecture on the War’, Era, 17 May 1857, 10.
28.
‘Mr W. Russell’s Lectures’, Evening Mail, 13 May 1857, 1.
29.
‘Mr William Russell’, 16 May 1857, 476.
30.
‘Mr W. H. Russell’s Personal Narrative of the Russian War’, Sheffield Independent, 19 September 1857, 8.
31.
‘Mr W. H. Russell’s Personal Narrative’, 15 May 1857, 3.
32.
‘Mr W. H. Russell and His Personal Narrative’, 31 October 1857, 3.
33.
‘Mr W. Russell’s Lectures’, 13 May 1857, 1.
34.
‘Mr W. H. Russell’s Personal Narrative of the Russian War’, 19 September 1857, 8.
35.
‘The Crimean War—Russell’s Personal Narrative’, Liverpool Daily Post, 8 June 1857, 5.
36.
‘The Crimean War—Russell’s Personal Narrative’, 5.
37.
‘Mr William Russell’, Illustrated London News, 16 May 1857, 476.
38.
Atkins, 1: p. 271.
39.
W. Hamish Fraser, The Wars of Archibald Forbes (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 2015), p. 183.
40.
G. A. S., ‘Echoes of the Week’, Illustrated London News, 12 March 1881, 243.
41.
See the report: From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The War: The Great Battle at Plevna’, Daily News, 4 August 1877, 5.
42.
Fraser notes this was on top of ‘his regular salary that was at least £1200 per year’. Fraser, p. 137.
43.
‘Dinner to Mr Archibald Forbes’, Daily News, 3 December 1877, 2.
44.
‘Dinner to Mr Archibald Forbes’, 2.
45.
‘Celebrities at Home: No. LXIII Mr Archibald Forbes at Maida Vale’, World, 31 October 1877, 4–5.
46.
Fraser, p. 145.
47.
‘The Russo-Turkish War—Mr Archibald Forbes at the Albert Hall’, Sheffield Independent, 13 March 1878, 3.
48.
Fraser, p. 148.
49.
See, for example, ‘Mr Archibald Forbes in Hull’, Hull Packet, 10 October 1879, 6.
50.
Fraser, p. 183.
51.
‘Mr Forbes Upon Royalty’, New York Times, 14 October 1880, 2.
52.
‘Thursday, July 6, 1882’, Argus, 6 July 1882, 7.
53.
‘Mr Archibald Forbes’ Lecture’, Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 13 January 1885, 3.
54.
‘Saturday, July 8, 1882’, Argus, 8 July 1882, 9.
55.
‘Ewell’, Croydon Advertiser and East Surry Reporter, 22 November 1879, 7.
56.
Reprinted in ‘War Correspondents’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 21 December 1880, 11.
57.
Cheltenham Chronicle, 6 December 1879. Quoted in Fraser, p. 184.
58.
‘What They Say’, Burnley Advertiser, 8 November 1879, 5.
59.
‘General News’, Western Gazette, 24 October 1879, 2.
60.
‘Special Gas’, Referee , 28 September 1879, 4. The references are presumably to Edward Payson Weston (1839–1929), popularly known as the ‘Father of modern pedestrianism’, and ‘Squire’ George Osbaldeston (1786–1866), famous for his horse-racing abilities.
61.
‘Literary Notices’, Essex Standard, West Suffolk Gazette and Eastern Counties Advertiser, 11 December 1880, 8.
62.
‘Prize Medalists’, Melbourne Punch, 8 June 1882, 8.
63.
‘Mr Archibald Forbes’, Frearson’s Monthly Illustrated Adelaide News, 1 August 1882, 114.
64.
‘Archibald Forbes in Sydney’, Illustrated Sydney News, 10 June 1882, 3.
65.
‘Archibald Forbes’, Australian Town and Country Journal, 13 May 1882, 878.
66.
‘Ewell’, 7; ‘Of Men and Things’, Sheffield Independent, 14 March 1878, 5; ‘Lecture by Mr Archibald Forbes’, Whitby Gazette, 21 February 1885, 4.
67.
‘London Letter’, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 27 September 1879, 2.
68.
‘Archibald Forbes’, Australian Town and Country Journal, 13 May 1882, 878.
69.
‘Mr Archibald Forbes’s Lectures’, Argus, 29 May 1882, 6.
70.
‘Archibald Forbes’, 13 May 1882, 878.
71.
‘Mr Archibald Forbes’ Lectures’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 May 1882, 6.
72.
‘Tuesday, July 4, 1882’, Argus, 4 July 1882, 5.
73.
‘Tuesday, July 10, 1883’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 July 1883, 7.
74.
Fraser, p. 202.
75.
‘Our London Correspondent’, Morpeth Herald, 11 October 1879, 4.
76.
Angela Dunstan, ‘Edmund O’Donovan’, Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism, ed. Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor (2nd edn, eBook: ProQuest, 2017), pp. 1308–09. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kentuk/reader.action?docID=5152999 [accessed 16 September 2018]
77.
‘Political and Metropolitan Notes’, Northern Whig, 6 November 1882, 5.
78.
See, for example, ‘The Royal Geographical Society’, Morning Post, 28 March 1882, 2; ‘The British Association’, Illustrated London News, 2 September 1882, 18.
79.
‘Political and Metropolitan Notes’, 5.
80.
Quoted in ‘Coming Visit of Mr O’Donovan’, Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 30 December 1882, 6.
81.
‘Coming Visit of Mr O’Donovan’, 6.
82.
‘Flotsam and Jetsam’, Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 13 January 1883, 6.
83.
‘Life among the Turcoman Nomads’, Daily News, 31 January 1883, 2.
84.
Ralph Straus, Sala: The Portrait of an Eminent Victorian (London: Constable, 1942), p. 243.
85.
Judy McKenzie, ‘G.A.S. in Australia: Hot Air Down-Under?’, Australian Literary Studies, 15 (1992), 313–22, 314.
86.
Straus, p. 244.
87.
Reprinted in ‘Mr G. A. Sala in America: An Interesting Interview’, Sydney Daily Telegraph, 17 February 1885, 6.
88.
‘Sala’s Mission’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 17 January 1885, 10. See also ‘Mr Sala’s Second Lecture’, Argus, 28 March 1885, 10.
89.
‘Greeting Mr Sala’, New York Times, 13 January 1885, 2.
90.
‘Mr Sala’s First Lecture’, Argus, 24 March 1885, 6.
91.
‘A Welcome Visitor’, Sydney Daily Telegraph, 16 March 1885, 4.
92.
‘Amusements’, Leader, 11 April 1885, 27.
93.
P. D. Edwards, Dickens’s ‘Young Men’: George Augustus Sala, Edmund Yates and the World of Victorian Journalism (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), p. 184.
94.
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.
95.
Quoted in Straus, p. 250.
96.
‘Mr George Augustus Sala’, Evening Journal, 16 July 1885, 2.
97.
‘Mr Sala’s Lectures’, Australasian, 4 April 1885, 632.
98.
‘Mr Sala’s Lecture’, Daily Telegraph, 19 December 1885, 2.
99.
‘Amusements’, 27.
100.
‘Mr Sala’s Lecture’, 19 December 1885, 2.
101.
‘Mr Sala’s Lectures’, 4 April 1885, 632.
102.
Chris Rojek, Celebrity (London: Reaktion, 2001), p. 12.
103.
‘Greeting Mr Sala’, 2.
104.
‘George Augustus Sala’, South Australian Register, 31 July 1885, 4. The ‘pamphlet’, Charles Dickens, by George Augustus Sala, was published by Routledge in 1870.
105.
‘George Augustus Sala’, 4.
106.
‘Mr George Augustus Sala’, Mercury, 17 December 1885, 3.
107.
‘The Sala Lecture’, Tasmanian News, 17 December 1885, 2.
108.
‘Stray Notes from Sydney’, Singleton Argus, 29 April 1885, 2.
109.
John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, ed. A. J. Hoppé, 2 vols (London: Dent, 1966), 2: p. 422.
110.
‘Mr G. A. Sala’, Tasmanian, 26 December 1885, 3–4, 3.
111.
‘Mr G. A. Sala’, Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 25 June 1885, 5.
112.
‘George Augustus Sala’, 4.
113.
‘George Augustus Sala’, 4.
114.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: George-Street, Sydney (I)’, Daily Telegraph, 25 August 1885, 5.
115.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: Aspects of Sydney’, Daily Telegraph, 3 September 1885, 5.
116.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: George-Street, Sydney (II)’, Daily Telegraph, 1 September 1885, 5.
117.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: Fair Adelaide (I)’, Daily Telegraph, 14 October 1885, 5.
118.
‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: George-Street, Sydney (II)’, 5.
119.
‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: George-Street, Sydney (I)’, 5.
120.
‘Augustus Sala in Australia’, Derry Journal, 2 September 1885, 4.
121.
Delyse Ryan notes that a play bearing this title was written and performed ‘for an unusually long season’ four years after Sala’s visit. Delyse Ryan, ‘“Does All Melbourne Smell Like This?”: The Colonial Metropolis in Marvellous Melbourne’, Australian Literary Studies, 21 (2003), 81–91, 81.
122.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: ‘Twixt Burke and Collins’, Daily Telegraph, 24 September 1885, 5.
123.
From Our Special Correspondent, ‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: Arcadia in Australia’, Daily Telegraph, 26 September 1885, 5.
124.
‘The Land of the Golden Fleece: ‘Twixt Burke and Collins’, 5.
125.
‘Politics and Society’, Leeds Mercury, 11 September 1885, 5.
126.
‘Table Talk’, Table Talk, 28 August 1885, 2.
127.
The ‘Vagabond’ was John Stanley James (1843–96) who came to Australia in 1875 and wrote articles on life in Melbourne (especially), Sydney, and Queensland. I am indebted to Robert Dingley for this information.
128.
Reprinted from the Rockhampton Bulletin in ‘Mr George Augustus Sala and “the Vagabond”’, Mackay Mercury and South Kennedy Advertiser, 22 August 1885, 2.
129.
‘Town Chit-Chat’, Lichfield Mercury, 21 August 1885, 8.
130.
Straus, p. 255.
131.
Harry How, ‘Illustrated Interviews: No. XIII—George Augustus Sala’, Strand Magazine, 4 (July 1892), 58–69, 63.

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School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
Catherine Waters

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Waters, C. (2019). Celebrity Specials on the Lecture Circuit. 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_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03861-8_7
Published: 07 February 2019
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