Sunday Dispatch: Difference between revisions

The Sunday Dispatch was a British newspaper, published between 27 September, 1801 and 1961.^[1][2]

First published as the Weekly Dispatch in 1801, it was bought by Alfred Harmsworth and Lord Rothermere in 1903^[3] from the Newnes family.^[4] The pair turned the newspaper around from bankruptcy, and made it the biggest selling Sunday newspaper, changing its name to the Sunday Dispatch in 1928.

In light of the trial verdict of the murder of PC Gutteridge of the Metropolitan Police in September 1927, the headline read "Hanged by a microscope." An early case of ballistics science, it reflected the fact that microscopic examination of the Smith and Wesson gun cartridge cases had provided the crucial evidence to convict car thieves Frederick Browne and Pat Kennedy of the murder.^[5]

In 1933, The Dispatch published Harry Price's book "Leaves From a Psychist's Case-Book" in a series of 10 articles.^[6]

In 1940, then editor Charles Eade asked Winston Churchill weeks before he became British Prime Minister for permission to publish an article Churchill wrote in 1937 entitled "How The Jews Can Combat Persecution" - Churchill, recognising the changed political situation, refused.^[7][8][9] By the end of World War Two, Dispatch was up from 800,000 to over 2 million copies per edition.^[10]

In 1945, the first Miss Great Britain contest was held by Morecambe and Heysham Council in association with the Dispatch, which as a preliminary to the personal appearance heats at Morecambe, photographic heats held in the newspaper attracted contestant from all over the country.^[11] The first prize was 7 guineas and a basket of fruit.^[12]

In late summer 1950, the Dispatch was partly responsible for launching the Flying Saucer debate in the UK, when in a circulation battle with the "Sunday Express," both papers competed to serialise the seminal books by Major Donald Keyhoe "Flying Saucers are Real," Frank Scully’s "Behind the Flying Saucers" and Gerald Heard's "Riddle of the Flying Saucers." Eade had been encouraged to promote ‘flying saucer’ stories by his friend Lord Mountbatten whom he had served as Press officer during the Second World War.^[13] The Dispatch later reported on the West Freugh incident in 1957.^[14][15]

In 1954 the Dispatch broke the story that racing driver Mike Hawthorn was not called up for National Service because he cited that he was not in the country, while in actual fact he was.^[16]

In 1959, the Dispatch exposed a story about Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, where he sold shares in a company for $65 that didn't exist. Hubbard apologized, and returned all monies, and allegedly commenting: "It's lucky the police did not become involved, otherwise something most unpleasant might have happened."^[17]

In light of comment from Randolph Churchill that Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere was "pornographer royal" for his ownership of the Daily Sketch and Sunday Dispatch, Rothermere fired both Eade and the editor of the Daily Sketch.^[18] Under its last editor was Walter Hayes, it still had pre-printed posters with the headline "CHURCHILL IS DEAD."^[19] Unfortunatly, it ceased publication before in 1961.

The Dispatch was later the setting of Philip Norman's 1996 novel "Everyone's Gone to the Moon" about reporting in the British pop-invasion of America in the 1960s.^[20]

Former jounalists and editors

• Charles Eade - editor, Press Liason officer for Lord Mountbatten during the Second World War
• Alastair Forbes - wrote weekly column called "Behind the World Political Scene" from 1945, but he was fired in 1956.^[21]
• Walter Hayes - editor, 1957-1961. Later Ford PR Vice President.^[22]
• Gerald McKnight - editor. Later founder of News Shopper^[23]
• Reverend Marcus Morris - feature article, later founder of "The Eagle" comic^[24]
• Bill Tidy - cartoonist^[25]
• Ian Wooldridge - journalist^[26]

References

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