In the wake of the resounding defeat of Hampshire Liberals in the January 1835 general election, John Wheeler established the Hampshire Independent as a Whig alternative to the staunchly Tory Hampshire Advertiser run by John Coupland, formerly printer on the anti-radical British Monitor. Wheeler (1807-1854) was part of a multi-generational newspaper printing, publishing and bookselling dynasty who cut his teeth as a printing apprentice on the family’s Manchester Chronicle. He was also a colleague of Charles Dickens, having worked with him as a Parliamentary reporter in London on the Morning Chronicle.
Wheeler was appointed editor, publisher, printer, and sole proprietor of the Hampshire Independent. The newspaper had financial backing from a number of illustrious personalities - Lord Palmerston, John Easthope, John Bonham-Carter and other local and regional MPs - as well as prominent Southampton Liberals including Richard and George Laishley, Charles Maul, Henry Buchan, Arthur Atherley, Rushworth Keele and William Colson Westlake. The paper was first issued on 28 March 1835 from the printing office at 41 Above Bar Street, later relocating to 52 Above Bar in 1841. The competition at 28 High Street was certainly not far enough away to do political, personal, and financial damage. The tit-for-tat battles waged in the pages of these two Southampton-based newspapers were said to have provided the model for the Eatanswill Gazette and Eatanswill Independent newspaper satire in Dickens’ Pickwick Papers published in 1837. Wheeler’s later fall from grace and vituperative retaliation make for equally engaging, if sobering, reading. By October 1835, a contemporary caricatured him as a 'Disciple of Faust': “he is apt to abuse a fellow one week, and fawn upon him the next. I do not quite understand his steering.” As Wheeler fell into debt and eventually bankruptcy, the newspaper was finally bought by Thomas Leader Harman on 5 September 1840, with John Traffles Tucker engaged as printer and publisher and Jacob Jacob assuming the editorship. Wheeler went over to the dark side, writing for the Hampshire Advertiser and providing unauthorised reports of private reform meetings. By May 1841, Wheeler was exposed as a “traitor and a spy … a crawling loathsome thing that lampoons for gold.” After spending time in the Queen’s Prison, London, for debt, he resurfaced in the newspaper trade, concluding his controversial career as publisher, editor, and proprietor of the Liberal weekly, the Durham Chronicle. Down, but not out. References: Richard Preston, “John Wheeler and the Hampshire Independent, 1835-40,” Southampton Occasional Paper No. 12 (Dec 2015). Richard Preston, “Thomas Leader Harman: a gentleman of fortune in mid-nineteenth century Southampton,” Journal of the Southampton Local History Forum, no. 16 (Winter 2010): 3-27. F. David Roberts, “Still More Early Victorian Newspaper Editors,” Victorian Periodicals Newsletter 18 (vol.5, no.4) Dec 1972: 12-26. http://sotonopedia.wikidot.com/page-browse:wheeler-john
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AuthorSydney Shep, Reader in Book History & The Printer, Wai-te-ata Press, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ ArchivesCategories |