Radical journalist and editor son of a Methodist local preacher who was the Private Secretary to the Gurney family, Quaker bankers in Norwich. Born on 25 May 1860, he was educated at Norwich Grammar School. He became the editor of the London Star in 1890 and the Daily Chronicle 1897-9 but was forced out because his editorials were hostile to the government's line during the Second Boer War. From 1907 he edited the leading British radical weekly, the Nation. In his early years he was a member of the Fabian Society but resigned in 1892 when George Bernard Shaw and Sydney Webb began advocating an independent labour party; but ultimately joined the Labour Party in 1923. During the First World War he advocated a negotiated settlement with Germany. He died on 22 August 1924.
DCD* Catherine Ann Cline, Recruits to Labour: the British Labour Party, 1914-1931DCD (1963)