Recent Conference: ‘Comment is free, but facts are sacred’

‘Comment is free, but facts are sacred’:

The Guardian in Local, National, and Global History

 

Thursday 6 April 2017, The John Rylands Library,

 The University of Manchester

 

Keynote speaker: Alan Rusbridger, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and former Editor-in-Chief of the Guardian.

 

The University of Manchester Library and the John Rylands Research Institute present a one-day interdisciplinary conference on the history of the Guardian newspaper.

 

Abstract of one of the papers to be read:

 

                                  A Challenge to the Editor

 

Manchester was the scene of great constitutional change during the 1830s. Following repeated defeats at the polls, Tory morale was low at this time, but the proposal in 1838 to incorporate the borough, under the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, provided a rallying point and a cause to unify the ailing party in opposition to the plan. Incorporation presented for the first time the possibility that administrative power might be removed from those who felt they had the right to it by virtue of property, position and tradition, and given to elected representatives.

James Crossley, a prominent solicitor with literary and antiquarian interests, played an important part in defending the Tory viewpoint, and resisting any attempts to bring about reform. The Manchester Guardian championed the cause of incorporation, while the Manchester Courier and Wheeler's Manchester Chronicle took the opposite view. When the debate was at its height and tempers were running high on both sides, a dispute developed between Crossley and the founder and first editor of the Manchester Guardian, John Edward Taylor, who has been described as ‘a small man of louring mien and priggish temperament’. Taylor described Crossley, by implication, as a ‘disreputable lawyer … guilty not merely of wilful misrepresentation, but of actual falsehood’ which resulted in Crossley challenging Taylor to a duel. This paper will tell the story of the events leading up to this challenge, and examine its consequences.

Steve Collins

 

                                                     John Edward Taylor