Lilias Margaret Frances, Countess Bathurst

Lilias Margaret Frances, Countess Bathurst (née Borthwick, 12 October 1871 – 30 December 1965) was a British newspaper publisher who owned The Morning Post. Her father, Algernon Borthwick, 1st Baron Glenesk, had owned the paper and revived its fortunes. He died in 1908, and control of the paper passed to Lady Bathurst. She led the paper as the only female owner of a major newspaper in the world, reorienting it to focus on political and diplomatic affairs. The paper continued to be highly successful and respected under her ownership; it was considered an organ of the Conservative Party and contributed to the fall of Arthur Balfour and David Lloyd George from power. Lord Northcliffe, one of Lady Bathurst's competitors and the owner of The Times, wrote that she was "the most powerful woman in England, without exception other than royalty". She sold the paper in 1924 and lived in relative obscurity before dying in 1965 at the age of 94.

Lilias Margaret Frances, Countess Bathurst
Born12 October 1871
London, England
Died30 December 1965(1965-12-30) (aged 94)
Chesterton, Gloucestershire, England
Known forOwning The Morning Post
Political partyConservative
Spouse(s)
​
(
m. 1893; died 1943)
Children4 (including Allen Bathurst, Lord Apsley)

Personal life

Lilias Margaret Frances Borthwick was born on 12 October 1871 to Algernon Borthwick, 1st Baron Glenesk, and Alice Beatrice, the daughter of Thomas Lister, on Eaton Place in London. She married Seymour Bathurst, 7th Earl Bathurst on 15 November 1893. They had four children; three sons and a daughter.[1]

She lived with her husband on Saint Helena during the Boer War as he was in command of the garrison on the island. She wanted to purchase Longwood House, where Napoleon had lived in exile, but never did.[2] When her father died, she inherited his house in Piccadilly but sold it and moved to Bruton Street[2]

The Morning Post

Early experience

Her father, Lord Glenesk, was the owner of The Morning Post[3] and had restored the paper.[1] He trained her brother Oliver Borthwick to take over the paper, but her brother died in 1905.[4]

Upon his death, Lady Bathurst became involved in the paper in 1905.[5][6] That same year Fabian Ware became editor of The Morning Post.[7] Shortly after beginning work, Ware came into conflict with Glenesk, who thought he should promote tariff reform less, and Ware wrote asking Lady Bathurst to intervene and threatening to resign.[5] When Glenesk died in November 1908, she became the owner of the paper. Although Spenser Wilkinson, the paper's lead writer, attempted to turn her against Ware,[5] Ware eventually became Lady Bathurst's favorite editor.[8]

When Lady Bathurst took ownership of the newspaper, it was reported that she was the only woman newspaper owner at the time in London,[9] and by some papers that she was the only woman in the world to own a major newspaper.[10] She heavily focused The Morning Post on political and diplomatic affairs[11] and was a serious Catholic and Conservative.[1] Borthwick played a large role in dictating the paper's policies. In 1922, it was written that "no line of importance is admitted to the columns without her 'O.K'". [10] The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) wrote that Borthwick considered her main principles to be "loyalty to the crown, to the church, and to every cause which was honourable and right".[1] Under her ownership, the paper was imperialist, protectionist, militaristic, anti-semitic, and opposed Home Rule for Ireland, socialism, women's suffrage and communism. The DNB concludes the paper was "general die-hard". The paper served as the organ of the Conservative party[1][10] and was considered refined and aristocratic under her ownership.[4] In 2014 Harry Defries wrote that "The Morning Post represented the extreme right of Conservatism and its hostility towards Jews was extreme".[12]

In response to the perceived military deficiency of the United Kingdom and Germany's successful test of a Zeppelin, The Morning Post announced the creation of a National Airship Fund on 21 June 1909. The aim of the fund was to raise £20,000 through public subscription to purchase the United Kingdom an airship. Lady Bathurst contributed an initial £2,000 to the fund. In July, Ware travelled to Paris and commissioned Lebaudy Frères to build the Lebaudy Morning Post. In August, it was revealed that the Daily Mail had offered to pay for a hangar while an airship from Clément-Bayard was shipped to England. Ware rushed to ensure the Morning Post's airship arrived first, and by May 1910 he began helping plan the airship's route to England. However, on 16 October 1910, the Clément-Bayard No.2, sponsored by The Daily Mail, arrived in England. The War Office purchased the airship and the National Airship Fund was left out of negotiations. The airship commissioned by The Morning Post was damaged when it arrived in England ten days after the Clément-Bayard No.2, its hangar was too small, and it crashed on its first test flight. Ware was accused of financial mismanagement and poorly managing the paper. After threatening to sue L. J. Bathurst, the paper's manager and Lady Bathurst's brother-in-law, over libel, he was given £3,000 and agreed to retire. His retirement was announced on 14 June 1911.[13][14][15]

Later experience

Upon the recommendation of Rudyard Kipling, she appointed H. A. Gwynne editor of the paper in 1911.[9][16] She stayed informed about important matters of the paper and generally supported Gwynne.[1]

Her father had been very successful running the paper; he developed a system to accept payment for coverage in social columns; was earning an estimated $500,000 per year for the paper by 1914. That year, The New York Times described the Morning Post under his control as "a capably conducted newspaper in all respects, conservative in its methods, and retaining possibly more editorial influence than any other London newspaper". The New York Times considered that Lady Bathurst ran the paper "with a success equal to her fathers".[17]

In May 1914 Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, the owner of The Times, reduced the price of his newspapers to one penny, beginning a 'newspaper war' with The Morning Post, The Telegraph, and The Standard, which all published at that price. It was thought that The Morning Post had the weakest hold on circulation, and would be targeted by Lord Northcliffe. He wrote that the Post was "a paper which has the unique distinction of voicing the views of a very gifted lady". The war began with advertisements published in the papers.[17] Borthwick refused to allow The Times to advertise their price reduction in The Morning Post.[2] She continued to fight the Northcliffe for years.[18]

Borthwick was briefly a nurse in France during the First World War[1] and helped various war charities. In 1918 Gwynne and Charles à Court Repington, the war correspondent for The Morning Post during the conflict, were fined $500 dollars each for publishing an article that criticised the Lloyd George ministry. Lady Bathurst supported Repington and Gwynne for publishing the story.[1][18] In July 1920, The Morning Post published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination, with no commenting. H. A. Gwynne had sent the document to Lady Bathurst before publication.[19]

In 1920, she founded the British League of Help for the Devastated Areas of France and Belgium.[20]

In a 1922 article, The Outlook called her "the world's greatest woman newspaper owner". Lord Northcliffe called her "the most powerful woman in England, without exception other than royalty".[21] In 1922, Lord Midleton was offended by a story he read in the newspaper. He accosted Lady Bathurst, and she refused to apologise. When David Lloyd George fell from power in late 1922, Hayden Church for the McClure Newspaper Syndicate wrote that "with the exception of Andrew Bonar Law himself, and perhaps not even excepting the present Prime Minister, no single individual played a greater part in precipitating the crisis that drove David Lloyd George from office than did Lady Bathurst through her famous journal, the 'Morning Post'". She was also credited with helping decrease the power of Arthur Balfour through creating a 'Balfour Must Go' movement.[10]

After circulation had fallen dramatically,[1] in December 1922 she decided to sell the paper, assigning her son Allen Bathurst, Lord Apsley, to handle the negotiations. Negotiations with Rupert E. Beckett of The Yorkshire Post began in 1923, but were unsuccessful. On 7 April 1924 the paper was sold to Alan Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland, and a consortium of prominent Conservatives for £500,000 (£28,727,536 in 2019).[9][16]

After selling the paper she lived in relative obscurity, helping her son politically. Allen Bathurst died in 1942 and Seymour Bathurst the following year. She died on 30 December 1965 at the age of 94 in Chesterton, Gloucestershire.[1]

References
  1. "Bathurst [née Borthwick], Lilias Margaret Frances, Countess Bathurst". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/65832. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Marquise De Fontenoy (22 March 1914). "Peeress is Editor of Big Newspaper". The Washington Post. The Brentwood Company – via Newspapers.com.
  3. Carruthers, Greensted & Roscoe 2019, p. 83.
  4. Marden, Dr (April 1914). "A Woman Who Runs a Great Newspaper". Maclean's | The Complete Archive. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  5. Wilson 1990, pp. 11–12.
  6. Potter 2003, p. 113.
  7. Wilson 1990, p. 10.
  8. Wilson 1990, p. 5.
  9. "Lady Bathurst Sells The Morning Post To Duke of Northumberland and Others". The New York Times. 14 April 1924. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  10. Church, Hayden (21 December 1922). "Woman Who Owns Great Newspaper Makes and Unmakes Statesmen". The Charlotte Observer. The McClure Newspaper Syndicate – via Newspapers.com.
  11. Edmond 2017, p. 44.
  12. Defries 2014, p. 75.
  13. Byrne 2007, p. 86.
  14. Wilson 1990, pp. 33–48.
  15. Paris 1992, p. 101.
  16. Wilson, K. M. (1 January 1933). "The "Yorkshire Post", Conservative Central Office and the Negotiations for the Purchase of the "Morning Post", 1923-24". Publishing History. 33: 89–94.
  17. "Countess a Leader in Newspaper War; Lady Bathurst Will Fight London Times, Which Invades Morning Post's Field". The New York Times. 15 March 1914. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  18. "Woman Fights Lord Northcliffe". Los Angeles Evening Express. 12 April 1918 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. Defries 2014, p. 74.
  20. British League of Help and Worcester's Adoption of Gouzeaucourt
  21. Hoffman 1922, p. 756.

Bibliography

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