W. T. Stead on Victoria Embankment: London #34

 

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'

 

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.