The Leader was a radical weekly newspaper, published in London from 1850 to 1860 at a price of 6d.
George Henry Lewes and Thornton Leigh Hunt founded The Leader in 1850.
They had financial backing from Edmund Larken, who was an unconventional clergyman looking for a vehicle for "Christian liberal" views.
Contributors included Thomas Spencer Baynes,[4] Wilkie Collins,[5] George Eliot, Andrew Halliday, the future theatre manager John Hollingshead (1827–1904), the future politician James Mackenzie Maclean (1835–1906), the future anthropologist John McLennan, Gerald Massey, the art critic Henry Merritt (1822–1877), Edmund Ollier (1826–1886), Herbert Spencer, and the political journalist Edward Michael Whitty (1827–1860).
The paper carried correspondence from William Edward Forster (proposing state farms and workshops) and Barbara Bodichon (on prostitution).