Stead and the Whitechapel Frenzy

Abstract

This chapter begins the contextualization of Bernard Shaw’s journalism. London journalism of the 1880s is examined, particularly W. T. Stead’s ascent to a position as the most popular and powerful journalist and editor of the decade. Stead’s early great successes (his campaigns for an increase in naval expenditure (1884) and his efforts to expose child prostitution (1885)), are considered in the context of a young Shaw seeking a writing career. Initially, Shaw enthusiastically embraced Stead’s successes, but this changed to abhorrence of Stead’s sensationalizing style when it was discovered that he had fabricated and staged the main reporting of the child prostitution leader articles. Stead’s success, which continued despite his fraudulent deception, prompted other newspapers to mimic Stead’s style with The Pall Mall Gazette, the newspaper he edited from 1884 to 1890. New papers were formed in order to capitalize on the Stead style of sensationalism and shock journalism. Into this atmosphere in August 1888 emerged the serial murderer working in the Whitechapel district of East London, and neighboring areas, eventually known as Jack the Ripper—a name most likely generated by a zealous disciple of Stead’s. The popular press’s murder coverage is examined as the context for Shaw’s response to the crisis. His “Blood-Money to Whitechapel” in The Star newspaper, edited by T. P. O’Connor, cuts through the sensationalizing and hypocritical class responses to the murders—and anticipates the critical voice that had begun to emerge. During the grisly murders, The Star would prove a training ground for a number of important future editors who later published Shaw’s submitted journalism on crucial issues in other newspapers. It was a gruesome time, but an extraordinary moment for London’s New Journalism, and Shaw was there.