Harold Harmsworth
Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere (26 April 1868 – 26 November 1940) was a highly successful British newspaper proprietor, owner of Associated Newspapers. He is known in particular, with his brother Alfred Harmsworth, the later Lord Northcliffe, for the development of the London Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. He was a pioneer of popular journalism.
Harmsworth founded the Glasgow Daily Record, and the Sunday Pictorial, but his greatest success came with the Daily Mirror, which had a circulation of three million by 1922. His elder brother died without an heir in that year, and he acquired control of the Daily Mail.
He served as President of the Air Council in the government of David Lloyd George for a time during World War I, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Rothermere. In 1921, he founded the Anti-Waste League to combat what he saw as excessive government spending.
Rothermere's descendants continue to control the Daily Mail and General Trust plc.
Revision of the post-WWI treaties
Rothermere strongly supported revision of the Treaty of Trianon in favour of Hungary, to the extent that he was offered the Hungarian Crown in 1927. He declined, but purchased estates in Hungary in case Britain should fall to a Soviet invasion. There is a memorial to Rothermere in Budapest.
Appeasement
In later life Rothermere used his newspaper ownership in attempts to influence British politics, notably being a strong supporter of appeasement towards Nazi Germany, in part - it is thought - because of a shattering experience during WWI when he had three sons reported killed or missing in the same week. In the 1930s, he urged increased defence spending while being the owner of the only major newspapers to advocate an alliance with Germany. The Rothermere papers for a time in 1934 championed the British Union of Fascists (B.U.F), and were again the only major papers that did so.
Secret British government papers released in 2005 show that Rothermere wrote to Adolf Hitler congratulating him for the annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, and encouraged him to march into Romania. The MI5 papers also show that Rothermere paid a retainer of £5,000 per year to Stephanie Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingfurst, a glamorous Austrian princess and German spy, intending that she should bring him closer to Hitler's inner circle. She was known as "London's leading Nazi hostess". The secret services had been monitoring her since she came to Britain in the 1920s and regarded her as "an extremely dangerous person". As World War II loomed, Rothermere stopped the payments and their relationship deteriorated into threats and lawsuits. In 1934, a Mercury-engined version of the Bristol Type 135 cabin monoplane was ordered by Rothermere for his own use as part of a campaign to popularise commercial aviation. First flying in 1935, the aircraft caused great interest in Air Ministry circles on account of its top speed of 307 m p h being higher than that of any R.A.F fighter in service. Lord Rothermere presented the aircraft (named "Britain First") to the nation for evaluation as a bomber and in early 1936 the modified design was designated Blenheim Mk.I
Sources
- D. George Boyce, "Harmsworth, Harold Sidney, first Viscount Rothermere (1868–1940)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 23 Aug 2006
External links
- Page at Spartacus
- "Rothermere urged Hitler to invade Romania", in The Independent, March 1, 2005 (no longer available online)
- Rothermere memorial in Budapest
| Preceded by: W Pearson, as President of the Air Board |
President of the Air Council 1917 – 1918 |
Succeeded by: W D Weir |
| Preceded by: New creation |
Viscount Rothermere |
Succeeded by: Esmond Harmsworth |
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