William Thomas Stead (5 July 1849 – 15 April 1912) was an English newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of investigative journalism, became a controversial figure of the Victorian era.

[4][5][6] A year later the family moved to Howdon on the River Tyne,[1] where his younger brother, Francis Herbert Stead, was born.

One of Stead's favourite childhood memories was of his mother leading a local campaign against the government's controversial Contagious Diseases Acts – which required prostitutes living in garrison towns to undergo medical examination.

[7] Stead was always guided by a moral mission, influenced by his faith, and wrote to a friend that the position would be "a glorious opportunity of attacking the devil".

When Morley was made Secretary of State for Ireland, Gladstone asked the new cabinet minister if he were confident that he could deal with that most distressful country.

[11] His innovations as editor of the Gazette included incorporating maps and diagrams into a newspaper, breaking up longer articles with eye-catching subheadings and blending his own opinions with those of the people he interviewed.

[8] He made a feature of the Pall Mall extras, and his enterprise and originality exercised a potent influence on contemporary journalism and politics.

[17] In 1884 Stead pressured the government to send his friend General Gordon to the Sudan to protect British interests in Khartoum.

[12] After General Gordon's death in Khartoum in January 1885, Stead ran the first 24-point headline in newspaper history, ‘TOO LATE!’, bemoaning the relief force's failure to rescue a national hero.

[18] During the following year he managed to persuade the British government to supply an additional £5.5 million to bolster weakening naval defences, after which he published a series of articles.

[15] However he is also credited with originating the modern journalistic technique of creating a news event rather than just reporting it, as his most famous ‘investigation’, the Eliza Armstrong case, was to demonstrate.

[21] In 1885, in the wake of Josephine Butler's fight for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, Stead entered upon a crusade against child prostitution by publishing a series of four articles entitled ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’.

[8] Though his action is thought to have furthered the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, his successful demonstration of the existence of the trade led to his conviction for abduction and a three-month term of imprisonment at Coldbath Fields and Holloway prisons.

[26] His ethos behind the venture pre-dated Allen Lane's Penguin Books by nearly forty years, and he became "the foremost publisher of paperbacks in the Victorian Age".

[14] In 1896, Stead launched the series Books for the Bairns, whose titles included fairy tales and works of classical literature.

He was an early imperial idealist, whose influence on Cecil Rhodes in South Africa remained of primary importance; many politicians and statesmen, who on most subjects were completely at variance with his ideas, nevertheless owed something to them.

[31] The number of his publications gradually became very large, as he wrote with facility and sensationalist fervour on all sorts of subjects, from The Truth about Russia (1888) to If Christ Came to Chicago!

[33] In 1904 he launched The Daily Paper, which folded after six weeks, and Stead lost £35,000 of his own money (almost £3 million in 2012 value) and suffered a nervous breakdown.

[34][35][self-published source][36] In 1905 Stead travelled to Russia to try to discourage violence during the Russian Revolution, but his tour and talks were unsuccessful.

[38][40] His spirit contact was alleged to be the departed Julia A. Ames, an American temperance reformer and journalist whom he met in 1890 shortly before her death.

[44] In the early 20th century, Arthur Conan Doyle and Stead were duped into believing that the stage magicians Julius and Agnes Zancig had genuine psychic powers.

Stead boarded the Titanic for a visit to the United States to take part in a peace congress at Carnegie Hall at the request of President William Howard Taft.

He chatted enthusiastically through the 11-course meal that fateful night, telling thrilling tales (including one about the cursed mummy of the British Museum), but then retired to bed at 10.30 pm.

[12] After the ship struck the iceberg, Stead helped several women and children into the lifeboats, in an act "typical of his generosity, courage, and humanity", and gave his life jacket to another passenger.

His sheer energy helped to revolutionise the often stuffy world of Victorian journalism, while his blend of sensationalism and indignation set the tone for British tabloids.

According to his biographer W. Sydney Robinson, "He twisted facts, invented stories, lied, betrayed confidences, but always with a genuine desire to reform the world – and himself."

According to Dominic Sandbrook, "Stead's papers forced his readers to confront the seedy underbelly of their own civilisation, but the editor probably knew more about that dark world than he ever let on.

[54][55] The bulk of this collection comprises Stead's letters from his many correspondents, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, William Gladstone and Christabel Pankhurst.