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Concept
Edward Lloyd (publisher)
Summary
Edward Lloyd (16 February 1815 – 8 April 1890) was a British London-based publisher. His early output of serialised fiction brought Sweeney Todd, Varney the Vampire, and many romantic heroes to a new public – those without reading material that they could both afford to buy and enjoy reading. His hugely popular penny dreadful serials earned him the means to move into newspapers.
Moving away from fiction in the 1850s, his Sunday title, Lloyd’s Weekly, was the first newspaper to reach a million circulation. He later created the Daily Chronicle, renowned for the breadth of its news coverage. It grew in political influence until bought out in 1918 by Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
Lloyd's enthusiasm for industrial processes and technical innovation gave him an unbeatable competitive edge. In 1856, he set a new standard for Fleet Street’s efficiency by introducing Hoe’s rotary press. A few years later, when taking the unusual step of making his own newsprint, he revolutionised the paper trade by harvesting vast crops of esparto grass in Algeria. Lloyd was the only nineteenth century newspaper proprietor to take control of his entire supply chain, i.e. achieve full vertical integration.
Professor Rohan McWilliam of Anglia Ruskin University believes Lloyd to be a key figure who shaped popular culture, in terms of the press and popular fiction, stating “he was a key figure in the emergence of newspapers and popular culture in Britain.”
Edward Lloyd was the third son of a family impoverished by the father's intermittent bankruptcy. He was born in Thornton Heath and spent his life in London. After leaving school at 14, he abandoned work in a law firm when he discovered a much more absorbing topic from his evening studies at the London Mechanics' Institute – printing.
This shaped his ambitions and fuelled a lifelong passion for invention and machinery. At the same time, his first-hand knowledge of how people lived in the overcrowded streets on the city's periphery inspired him to encourage poor people to read and so to improve their lot in life.
Official source
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