FLEET STREET

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 110, 5 November 1937, Page 11

FLEET STREET

BIG ACHIEVEMENTS

MR. WAREHAM SMITH

Small of stature and modesty itself, but, nevertheless, a man with some notable achievements to. his credit, Mr. Wareham Smith arrived from England today by the Tamaroa.. He is not a man given to talking about himself; but he has been in some big "stunts," and during his time in Fleet Street, the home of journalism in England, he did things in a big way. But Mr. Smith will not say much about that, not to one meeting him casually anyway. Still, some of his experiences and achievements are set out in _ his memoirs, which he v/rote in bright, style under the caption of "Spilt Ink" after persuasion by the' publishing world at Home. In June, '1921, Mr. Smith severed a connection with the late Lord Northcliffe which had lasted without a break for 25 years. He retired on account of his health, his age then being forty-seven. At the time he was advertisement director of the Associated Newspapers, Ltd., and had a seat on the board. The company owned the "Daily Mail," "Evening News," "Weekly Dispatch," and the'"Overseas Daily Mail." He was responsible for the advertisement departments of all these newspapers. ■ Mr. Smith's association with the Press began when he was 11 years old, when, to supplement the family budget, he got a job at a newsagent-and-tobacconist shop near Loughbro' Junction, S.E. He delivered paper's to homes early in the morning and sold evening papers in the streets at night, and he recalls in his memoirs that one of the newspapers he sold was the "Evening News"! Mr. Smith founded the Aldwych Club in London and is still chairman of this club, which is a social institution for advertising men. What actuated him to found.the club? "I just wanted something to do one day," he told interviewers with a smile before he stepped ashore from the Tamaroa, Then he added that he founded the club so there would be a meeting place for the advertising men. Mr. Smith has been described as the father of modern Press advertising and the revenue-producing brain behind Northcliffe from the earliest days of his great enterprises. His ingenuity produced some great "stunts." Notable among the stunts in which he took a prominent part was the great War Loan drive at Home, in which Mr. Smith ,was instrumental in raising the huge sum of £168,000,000. For this he received the thanks of Mr. Bonar Law. The money was raised in a week, and Mr. Smith records in his book that the success of the appeal was rather overwhelming. "It had been thought," he writes, "that a periodical punch every two months might raise the individual subscriptions to fifty or sixty millions for that week, but the high figure reached' by this 'Business Men's Week' made it impossible to have another strong special push for quite a long time. In fact, it was not necessary, because the excess for the week over the twenty millions average was so great that the needs of the moment and for a few months ahead were adequately provided for." In "Spilt Ink" Mr. Smith has chronicled a number .of. other very interesting events during his newspaper career.. Extracts from his autobiography were broadcast in Australia some months ago. Nowadays, living in retirement, having been out of the newspaper field ior 15 years, Mr.'.. Smith travels each year when the English winter comes round. He goes away for three or four months,, to the West Indies as a rule. This is his first visit to New Zealand, and after travelling around New Zealand in the Tamaroa he proposes to go to Australia and thence back to England, via the Mediterranean. '" , i