This striking plaque is in front of HQS Wellington on Victoria Embankment, and bears the following breathless praise:
'W. T. STEAD
1849 – 1912
THIS MEMORIAL TO A JOVRNALIST
OF WIDE RENOWN WAS ERECTED
NEAR THE SPOT WHERE HE WORKED
FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS BY
JOVRNALISTS OF MANY LANDS IN
RECOGNITION OF HIS BRILLIANT GIFTS
FERVENT SPIRIT & VNTIRING DEVOTION
TO THE SERVICE OF HIS FELLOW MEN'
OF WIDE RENOWN WAS ERECTED
NEAR THE SPOT WHERE HE WORKED
FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS BY
JOVRNALISTS OF MANY LANDS IN
RECOGNITION OF HIS BRILLIANT GIFTS
FERVENT SPIRIT & VNTIRING DEVOTION
TO THE SERVICE OF HIS FELLOW MEN'
These words initially seem to suggest a slightly different view from W. Sydney Robinson's biography of Stead: Muckraker: The Scandalous Life and Times of W. T. Stead: Britain's First Investigative Journalist (2012), and this suggestion would appear to be given more credence by the first two sentences of the publisher's blurb:
'First rocketing to fame when he 'purchased' a 13-year old girl as part of a campaign against child prostitution, W. T. Stead was the pioneer of investigative reporting. As criminal convict, Puritan, sex-fanatic, occultist, social reformer and stuntman, Stead's notoriety escalated throughout his life until his tragic death in the Titanic disaster. '
But then, Robinson in his Foreword calls him 'arguably the most important journalist of all time'. This sounds like a very interesting read – I shall have to find time for it.
2 comments:
I wrote about the Pro Boers in graduate school. Stead's name came up...a lot.
He was a character.
By coincidence, I'm now reading a novel by C. K. Stead.
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