|
Charles Prestwich Scott (October 26, 1846 - January 1, 1932) was a British journalist, publisher and politician. He was the editor of the Manchester Guardian from 1872 until 1929 and its owner from 1907 until his death. He was also a Liberal Member of Parliament and pursued a progressive liberal agenda in the pages of the newspaper. Scott was connected to the Manchester Guardian from birth. The paper's founder, John Edward Taylor, was his uncle, and at the time of his birth his father Russell Scott was the paper's owner, though he later sold it back to Taylor's sons under the terms of Taylor's will. C. P. Scott went up to Corpus Christi College, Oxford and was still an undergraduate there when Edward Taylor offered him the editorship of the Guardian in 1867. He took a first in Greats in the autumn of 1869, then in 1870 went to Edinburgh to train on The Scotsman. He joined the Guardian in February 1871 and became its editor on January 1, 1872. As editor Scott initially maintained the Guardian In 1886, Scott fought his first general election as a Liberal candidate, an unsuccessful attempt in the Manchester North East constituency; he stood again for the same seat in 1891 and 1892. He was elected at the 1895 election as MP for Leigh, and thereafter spent long periods away in London during the parliamentary session. His combined position as a Liberal backbencher, the editor of an important Liberal newspaper, and the president of the Manchester Liberal Federation made him an influential figure in Liberal circles, albeit in the middle of a long period of opposition. He was re-elected at the 1900 election despite the unpopular stand against the Boer War that the Guardian had taken, but retired from Parliament at the time of the Liberal landslide victory in 1906, at which time he was occupied with the difficult process of becoming owner of the newspaper he edited. In 1905, the Guardian In a famous 1921 essay marking the Manchester Guardian C. P. Scott remained editor of the Manchester Guardian until July 1, 1929, at which time he was eighty-three years old and had been editor for exactly fifty seven and a half years. His successor as editor was his youngest son, Ted Scott, though C. P. remained as Governing Director of the company and was at the Guardian offices most evenings. He died in the small hours of New Year's Day 1932. In 1874, he had married Rachel Cook, who had been one of the first undergraduates of the College for Women, Hitchin (later Girton College, Cambridge). She died in the midst of the dispute over Taylor's will. Their daughter Madeline married long-time Guardian contributor C. E. Montague; eldest son Lawrence died in 1908, aged thirty-one, after contracting tuberculosis; middle son John became the Guardian
Quote Reference | ||||||||
|
| |||||||||
 |
|
| |