Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885

CHAPTER IV.. From Reporter to Editor.

FROM REPORTER TO EDITOR. First Visit to London--The Capital in 1862--Acquaintance with Sothern--Bursting of the Bradfield Reservoir--Attendance at Public Executions and at Floggings--Assuming the Editorship of the Preston Guardian--Political and Literary Influences--Great Speeches by Gladstone and Bright--Bright's Contempt for Palmerston--Robertson Gladstone Defends his Brother--Death of Abraham Lincoln--Meeting with his Granddaughter.

CHAPTER V.. Work on the Leeds Mercury

WORK ON THE LEEDS MERCURY My New Duties--Betrothal--The Writing of Leading Articles--The Founder of the Leeds Mercury--Edward Baines the Second--Thomas Blackburn Baines--Patriotic Nonconformists--Another Colliery Disaster: A Story of Heroism--An Abortive Fenian Raid at Chester--Reminiscences of the Prince of Wales's Visits to Yorkshire--Mr. Bright and the Reform Demonstrations of 1866--The Closing Speech at St. James's Hall--The Tribune of the People Vindicates the Queen.

CHAPTER VI.. Life in London.

LIFE IN LONDON. Appointed London Correspondent of the Leeds Mercury--My Marriage--Securing Admission to the Reporters' Gallery--Relations between Reporters and Members--Inadequate Accommodation for the Press--Reminiscences of the Clerkenwell Explosion--The Last Public Execution--The Arundel Club--James Macdonell--Robert Donald--James Payn--Mrs. Riddell and the St. James's Magazine--My First Novel--How Sala Cut Short an Anecdote--Disraeli as Leader of the House in 1868--A Personal Encounter with him at Aylesbury--Mr. Gladstone's First Ministry--Bright and Forster--W.E. Baxter--Irish Church Disestablishment Debate in the House of Lords--Mr. Mudford--Bereavement.

CHAPTER VII.. Editor of the _leeds Mercury_.

EDITOR OF THE LEEDS MERCURY. Forming Good Resolutions--Provincial Journalism in the 'Seventies-- Recollections of the Franco-German War--The Loss of the Captain and its Consequences to me--Settling Down at Leeds--Acquaintance with Monckton Milnes--Visits to Fryston--Lord Houghton's Chivalry--His Talk--His Skill in Judging Men--Stories about George Venables--Lord Houghton's Regard for Religious Observances.

CHAPTER VIII.. My First Continental Tour.

MY FIRST CONTINENTAL TOUR. A Generous Scot--Paris after the Commune--An Uncomfortable Journey Home--Illness of the Prince of Wales--Revived Popularity of the Throne--Death and Funeral of Napoleon III.--Burial of the Prince Imperial--Forster's Educational Policy--Bruce's Licensing Bill--My Second Marriage.

CHAPTER IX.. A New Era in Provincial Journalism.

A NEW ERA IN PROVINCIAL JOURNALISM. Bringing the Leeds Mercury into Line with the London Dailies--Friendship with William Black--The Dissolution of 1874--The Election at Leeds--Mr. Chamberlain's Candidature for Sheffield--Mr. Gladstone's Resignation--Election of his Successor--Birth of the Caucus--The System Described--Its Adoption at Leeds--Its Effect upon the Fortunes of the Liberal Party--The Bulgarian Atrocities Agitation.

CHAPTER X.. Contributions to Brontë Literature.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO BRONTË LITERATURE. Visit to Haworth--Feeling Against the Brontës in Yorkshire--Miss Nussey and her Discontent with Mrs. Gaskell's "Life"--Publication of "Charlotte Brontë: a Monograph"--Mr. Swinburne's Appreciation--An Abortive Visit to the Poet--Lecture on Emily Brontë and "Wuthering Heights"--Miss Nussey's Visit to Haworth after Charlotte's Marriage.

CHAPTER XI.. Visits to the Continent.

VISITS TO THE CONTINENT. Politics in Paris in 1877--An Oration by Gambetta--the Balloting--The Republic Saved--Gambetta's Funeral--A Member of the Reform Club--The Century Club--A Draught of Turpentine and Soda--The "Press Gang" at the Reform--James Payn and William Black--George Augustus Sala and Sir John Robinson--Disraeli's Triumph in 1878--A European Tour.

CHAPTER XII.. A Chapter of Misfortunes.

A CHAPTER OF MISFORTUNES. Death of my Sister's Husband and of my Brother James--An Accident on Marston Moor--Sir George Wombwell's Story of the Charge of the Light Brigade--His Adventure on the Ouse--Editing a Daily Newspaper from a Sick Bed--Reflections on Death--Death of my Mother--Serious Illness of my Only Daughter.

CHAPTER XIII.. The General Election of 1880.

THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1880. Mr. Gladstone's Position in 1879--His Decision to Contest Midlothian--How he came to be Adopted by the Leeds Liberals--The Conversation Club--A Visit from John Morley--The Dissolution of 1880--Lecture on Mr. Gladstone--His Triumphant Return for Leeds--His Election for Midlothian--Mr. Herbert Gladstone Adopted as his Successor at Leeds--Mr. Gladstone's Visit to Leeds in 1881--A Fiasco Narrowly Avoided--A Wonderful Mass Meeting--Mr. Gladstone's Collapse and Recovery--My Introduction to Him--An Excursion to Tunis--"The Land of the Bey"--Mr. A.M. Broadley's Prophecies--Howard Payne's Grave--A Series of Coincidences.

CHAPTER XIV.. Concerning W.e. Forster and Others.

CONCERNING W.E. FORSTER AND OTHERS. The Beginning of Mr. Stead's Journalistic Career--His Methods--Birth of the New Journalism--Madame Novikoff and Mr. Stead--Mr. Stead's Attacks upon Joseph Cowen--How he dealt with a Remonstrance--W. E. Forster--Mr. Chamberlain's Antagonism--The Leeds Mercury's Defence of Forster--How he was Jockeyed out of the Cabinet--Forster's Resignation--News of the Phoenix Park Murders--Forster's Reflections--Mr. Gladstone's Pity for Social Outcasts--Mr. Chamberlain's Brothers Blackballed at the Reform--Failure of an Attempt to Crush the Leeds Mercury--Forster's Gratitude.

CHAPTER XV.. The First Liberal Imperialist.

THE FIRST LIBERAL IMPERIALIST. Forster a Pioneer of Liberal Imperialism--His Political Courage--His Unfortunate Manner--His Home Life--Intrigues in the Cabinet--The Plots against Forster's Life--Reaction in his Favour--Forster and Lord Hartington--The Former's Grief for Gordon--Forster and Lord Rosebery--Mr. Stead and the Pall Mall Gazette--His Responsibility for the Gordon Imbroglio.

CHAPTER XVI.. Novels and Novelists.

NOVELS AND NOVELISTS. "The Lumley Entail"--"Gladys Fane"--My Experience in Novel-Writing--About Sad Endings--Imaginary Characters and Characters Drawn from Life--Visits from William Black and Bret Harte--Black as an After-Dinner Speaker--How Bret Harte saw Haworth Parsonage, and was Roughly Entreated by a Yorkshire Admirer--A Candid Opinion on the Brontë Monograph.

CHAPTER XVII.. To the Defeat of the Government (1885).

TO THE DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT (1885). More Antagonism towards Forster--A Household Suffrage Demonstration at Leeds--A Meeting at the Carlton Club and a Coincidence--Forster and "the most Powerful Man in England"--Single-Member Constituencies and the Cumulative Vote--Dynamite Outrages--Police Protection for Statesmen--I Receive Threatening Letters and Get a Fright--Death of Lord Houghton--Lord Derby and how he was Misunderstood--An Unconventional Dinner at Lord Houghton's--A Visit to Tangier--In Peril of the Sea--Gibraltar "a Magnificent Imposture"--Captain W. and the M.P.--To the North Cape--Cheering a Funeral Party--News of Mr. Gladstone's Overthrow--Home Again.

MEMOIRS OF SIR WEMYSS REID.

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CHAPTER I.. Early Days.

EARLY DAYS.

Birth and Parentage--Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the 'Forties--A Visit to St. Andrews--The Scottish Sabbath--First Acquaintance with a Printing Office--Tyneside in the Mid-Century--In Peril of Housebreakers--At Dr. Collingwood Bruce's School--A Plague of Flies--Cholera--Fire.

It was in the old town, now the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne that I first saw the light--March 29, 1842. My father, the Rev. Alexander Reid, was trained first at the University of St. Andrews, under Dr. Chalmers, and afterwards at Highbury College, London, under Dr. Pye-Smith, for the Congregational ministry. On leaving College he settled in 1830 at Newcastle, and there remained for half a century a faithful and honoured preacher, retiring in 1880 amid the esteem of the whole community on Tyneside. He died in 1887 under the roof of my younger brother Stuart, at Wilmslow, Cheshire, a year which was memorable to me in other than a sorrowful sense, since it was then that I settled in London. It was said of my father at the time of his death, in one of the Newcastle papers, that for a man to be in difficulty or sorrow was a passport to his help and sympathy. My mother was the daughter of Thomas Wemyss, of Darlington, a well known Biblical scholar and critic, a kinsman of the poet Campbell, and a direct descendant of the Stewarts of Ascog, Bute, a family which traced its descent in unbroken succession--with the bar sinister at the start--from Robert II. of Scotland.

Of the six children who grew up in the austerely simple but happy surroundings of my father's home, the eldest, Mary, was the daughter of my father by a previous marriage; she married the Rev. William Bathgate, D.D., of Kilmarnock, and died as recently as 1903, to my great sorrow. My elder brother James, with whom I was most closely associated in boyhood and youth, was always more or less of an invalid, and died at Leeds in 1880--the year in which our mother also passed away. I came next in the family, and my younger brothers are Alexander, now manager of the Dublin and Wexford Railway, and Stuart, who, like myself, has followed journalism and literature. It only remains for me to mention the youngest member of the family, John Paul, a bright and affectionate little fellow of thirteen, whose loss in 1868 threw a shadow over the home which only the passage of long years softened.

Newcastle, in those days, was scarcely a third of its present size, and the river Tyne, which is now a mere ditch, hemmed in on either side by great manufactories, shipbuilding yards, and wharves, from its mouth to a point above Newcastle, was then a fair and noble river, which watered green meadows and swept past scenes of rural beauty. The house in which I was born stood in Elswick Row, and in the year of my birth--1842--that terrace of modest houses formed the boundary-line of the town on the west. Beyond it was nothing but fields and open country. There was no High Level Bridge in those days, spanning the river and forming a link in the great iron highway between the English and Scotch capitals; nor had so much as the first stone of the famous Elswick Ordnance and Engineering Works been laid. The future Lord Armstrong, whom I met at dinner not long ago, looking hardly older than when I first saw him, was then a solicitor, whose office stood in Westgate Street, and whose dreams could scarcely have foreshadowed his ultimate destiny. Richard Granger was just completing that great reconstruction of the centre of the town which gave Newcastle so noble and unprovincial an appearance; but the fine streets he had constructed--finer than any others to be found in England at that period--were still untenanted, and it was melancholy in walking along Clayton Street to see nine houses out of ten mere empty shells without doors or windows.

My earliest recollections start out of the void with great distinctness on one particular day. It was my third birthday, and I can still recall vividly the two boys--myself and my brother James--who were playing together in the garden in front of the pleasant house we then occupied in Summerhill Terrace, when I was called into the drawing-room to receive my birthday gifts.

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