Pioneer Of Modem Journalism Dies Aged 82

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29724, 18 January 1962, Page 7

Pioneer Of Modem Journalism Dies Aged 82

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, January 16. Hannen Swaffer, the 82-year-old veteran journalist, dramatic critic, and doyen of British newspaper columnists, died in hospital today.

He was affectionately known as “The Pope of Fleet Street,” London's newspaper centre, where he worked for 60 years. Frederick Charles Hannen Swaffer, a journalist to the end of his long life, had worked on eight of Britain’s national newspapers during his chequered career as editor, columnist, drama critic or reporter. His sombre mien, picturesque clothes, provocative pen and his conviction that sometimes only he knew “the truth," made him a unique personality and a legend in his lifetime.

Mr Swaffer was born in Kent in 1879. His father was of Kentish farming stock, while his mother was des cended from the poet Keats. On leaving school he was first put into a wine and spirit warehouse as lad-of-all-work —washing bottles, cleaning windows and pushing a truck This work was highly distasteful, so he broke away at the first chance and got a job in the office of a Folkestone newspaper.

The hours were long, his pay low and the prospects hazy. In 1899 he answered an advertisement for a junior on a Preston paper and was accepted. There he was employed on nearly every phase of local journalism—reporting, sub-editing and proofreading—working generally

seven days a week and often from early morning till late at night. For this he received at first £1 a week and later £1 2s

6d. On asking for a further increase at the end of three months he was discharged. After returning to Folke-, stone and working for a time| on a rival to his first paper' he got his chance in London, being engaged by Arthur Pearson to assist in starting

some of his newspaper ventures. In 1902 he went over to the Northcliffe press and after being a reporter on the “Daily Mail” tor a time was made picture editor of the Daily Mirror.” He was later for four years editor of the “Weekly Dispatch.” During all this time in Fleet Street he was impressing his own ideas on the papers he served and he claimed that much of their success was due to the features he introduced. He invented daily “gossip” and wrote dramatic criticism with such freedom and smartness that he earned the reputation of being the best-liked and best-hated man in theatrical circles.

His writing was often witty and never dull and he had a first-rate sense of news value. In later years he wrote for a number of papers on a great variety of subjects and had much to do with the development of modern ideas of journalism. Mr Swaffer haa dictated his last weekly column for the professional weekly, the “World’s Press News,” from his sick bed only yesterday.