THE LATE LORD GLENESK.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 27 November 1908, Page 5

THE LATE LORD GLENESK.

A: REMARKABLE JOURNALISTIC

CAREER

" Lord' Glenesk {writes the 'Pall Mall Gazette"') was to have been a member of the-.Diplomatic Service,.for which he >vas. eminently adapted by. his charm, of manner... But English journalism may be grateful tq the family reasons that vetoed:this, and made.him the P&ris correspondent of the journal wvth which his father,: Peter .Borthwick, formerly -.M.P., for Evesham, was connected," the 'Morning Post.' Young Mr Algernon Borthwick (ho was not) then, of age) became friendly with Louis Napoleon, and;: distinguished himself particularly: by the; account of the Coup cl'JEtat. On the death of his father, in 1853, he became manager of the paper, then at a* low ebb, and set to work thoroughly to reorganise it. Particularly daring was his reduction of its price from threepence to a penny. The prophets insisted that the readers of the • Morning Post'—otherwise ' Jeames ' — would never tolerate such degradation, but it was soon found that even they had no exclusive prejudice in favour ot paying three times as much for an inferior article. What the ' MorningPost ' has become under Lord Glenesk as manager and proprietor all the world knows, it is his boast that it has never contained a paragraph which he had not reason to know was acceptable to the people concerned. But the 'Post' is no mere Society sheet, of course. It identified itself with Tory Democracy; it lis healthily independent in its Conservatism to this day; it has given Mr Spenser Wilkinson d • platform and helped to make Air Winston GhurphilL. To Lord Gienesk's journalistic record must be added the ' Owl' of the 'six-,, ties, of which he was the chief promoter. The secret of the authorship of this weekly publication, which shocked and delighted by the freedom with whicil it gave away political mysteries, was long kept, while the ' Owls,' who included ', Mr Stuart Wortley and Mr Evelyn Ashley, met weekly to consume their profits on a Monday dinner. In 1880 Mr L'orthwick was knighted, and unsuccessfully 'contested Evesham. He became a baronet in 1887. He sat for South Kensington from 1355 until he was raised to the peerage in 1395, acting during most of that time as chairman of the London Conservative M.P.'s. He took a leading part,in the foundation, of the Primrose League, and was, heartily seconded in his support of that institution by Lady Glenesk. Lord Glonesk has always shown the closest interest in the newspaper world, holding high-office in connection with the Press Fund, the Newspaper Society, and the Institute of Journalists. Born in 1830, ho was educated in Paris and in King's ■College, London. Lady Glenesk, a daughter of the late Thomas Henry Lister, of Armitage Park, Stafford, and a niece of the fourth Earl of Clarendon, was a great and charming hostess, whose death, in 1898, was widely mourned, as was that of Lord Glenesk's son, Mr Oliver Borthwicic. His daughter is Lady ■Bathurst. Lord Glenesk had no heir.