Here is an article from 1896 – unattributed – but written very much in the style of Edith Carrington – proposing ‘networking’ for better-financing humanitarian projects. The author reflects specifically on the challenges of funding a humanitarian monthly magazine / journal.
Building audiences – attracting paying advertisers – carefully managing & expanding your projects – the advice can be adjusted slightly & applied to many different great projects today, it is still relevant 118 years on.
Ernest Bell financed his anti-vivisection, vegetarian (vegan), animal rights, humanitarian projects, etc., with his share of the profits from George Bell & Sons.
Edith Carrington was a wealthy heiress. Her father was Henry Carrington (d-1859) – her mother was Emily Heywood Johns Carrington (1814-1890). See – here.
The Ernest Bell Library & The Humanitarian League are both running strongly. However, we do have very long ‘Wish Lists’ of items which we need to add to the library, & a large number of items which we would like to republish.
Financing anti-vivisection projects, vegan projects, animal rights projects, humanitarian projects are almost our full time activities.
From the article –
~ For instance, with the active co-operation of a few score persons, why
should not any paper, as an advertising medium only, be turned to profit?
Some intelligible system by which say a hundred persons were to combine
for the respective supply of some of their most ordinary wants would almost
keep any monthly paper going. ~
(Note – a ‘score’ means twenty. So 100 is ‘five score’.)
The Gypsy Journal and British Tourist No. XXIV July, 1896
Transcribed –
The Gypsy Journal and British Tourist
No. XXIV
July, 1896
ON HUMANITARIAN FINANCE
Perhaps, as this number closes the present volume, it may be as well for us, as those who have unprofitably (that is as far as finance goes) sunk about a hundred pounds in the humanitarian cause, to express an opinion on humanitarian finance – at any rate, on that aspect of such finance which concerns future literary or merely journalistic enterprises embarked on in the cause of humanity.
There is no doubt of the fact that, with a moderate amount of co-operation amongst humanitarians, literature might be turned to more monetary account instead of being the unvalued item in the market it now is. Has any publication in the cause of humanity ever yet paid its way? Do such excellent and really high-class literary or artistic papers as are regularly published to assist the humanitarian cause pay their way, or are they, like the Gipsy Journal, merely bolstered up by the private purses of a well-known generous section of the party?
It is not our business to press the question. What we want to drive home is that very obvious fact that there are many ways hitherto untried by which humanitarian literature may be turned to value and the strain on the coffers of the party alleviated. For instance, with the active co-operation of a few score persons, why should not any paper, as an advertising medium only, be turned to profit? Some intelligible system by which say a hundred persons were to combine for the respective supply of some of their most ordinary wants would almost keep any monthly paper going. Of course, we couldn’t suggest such a course in our own behalf, but now that selfish motives can no longer be imputed we tell humanitarians frankly that, if they mean to make a paying thing of their publications they must, by hook or crook, utilize them as marketable rather than ornamental advertising mediums. Have we not seen in one of the very foremost of these papers an advertisement of a company which we ourselves found out to be a failure months before it appeared in the aforesaid paper? Why should advertising space go thus a-begging? We repeat that if a few score humanitarians would only bind themselves together to trade with certain well-known tradespeople, in no matter whatever commodities, these same tradespeople would at once see it was well worth their while, in order to retain such valuable custom, to advertise each month in any specified publication. Think of a shoemaker receiving a hundred new regular customers amongst such a reliable class as is here represented! Would not a tailor snap smartly at such a chance? Or the hatter, or upholsterer, or the bicycle seller? We must all get our common wants supplied somewhere, most of us in London, too, and what on earth does it matter to us whether we deal with Shoelbred’s or Maple’s, with Whiteley’s or Crisp’s, with Parkin and Gotto’s or Straker’s, with John Piggott or Gamage? Other folks co-operate. Then why can’t we? For goodness sake, let us be more practical. We do not advocate the crippling of local industries – merely co-operation in commodities such as all of us are compelled to obtain from London tradespeople.
People who hold up hands in horror at the idea of dealing with special tradespeople should remember that, if humanitarianism is worth anything, it is worth fighting for tooth and nail. Tradespeople who turn up their noses at humanitarian publications as advertising mediums, must be taught that the humanitarian purse is not without potency. Co-operation is not boycotting, and the tremendous odds which humanitarian literature fights against – especially under the cruel censorship of the railway stalls – demand effective counteraction. Whilst the Humanitarian League are forming committees of several kinds, why should they not form a special “Literature Committee” on co-operative lines for supplying a new monthly, up-to-date as far as high-class illustrations and letter-press go, equal to the most alluring of the monthlies, containing general reading of the first order, yet admitting no contravention of the humanitarian law? The first thing to do is to get together a few score readers who would undertake to trade on co-operative lines, and the ball is at our feet. No more of this sense of dependence on those generous noble-minded men and women whom every one of us who starts a humanitarian enterprise seems bound to sue for funds, but a new-found sense of financial security and ability to push our literary wares with the same independence as other publishers and journalists. (Editorial – no author stated).
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The Gypsy Journal and British Tourist – existed only in 1895 & 6 – it ‘connected’ humanitarians, vegetarians, anti-vivisectionists, ramblers & cyclists.
It was edited by –
Edith Carrington
A. G. Munro B. A. – about whom we know absolutely nothing!
and
Walker Miles – the nickname of – Edmund Seyfang Taylor [1853-1908].
About Walker Miles
At the top of Leith Hill Tower are four indicator tablets facing north, south, east and west – one directs the eye towards an easterly direction towards Godstone church 14 1.2 miles away.
The plaque notes –
‘……tablets were provided by members and friends of the Federation of Rambler Clubs in grateful memory of Edmund Seyfang Taylor [Walker Miles] whose ‘Field Path Rambles’ helped to make known the byways of the countryside’.
‘Walker Miles’ was born in Camberwell, South East London on 27 August 1853, he was the son of Robert Edmund and Mary Ann Taylor. He live in Camberwell area for most of his life. He moved to Willow House, Godstone early in 1908. ‘Walker Miles ‘ was proprietor of the family printing and publishing firm, Robert Edmund Taylor and Son [established 1799], facilitated the production of his many publications, notably ‘Field Path Rambles’ and ‘Tramway Trips and Rambles’. Through an abundance of guidebooks, he wrote more than 30 volumes of Field Path Rambles, ‘Walker Miles’ touched the lives of thousands who rambled across the South East of England. His works, it is recorded, saved many public pathways from neglect or actual obstruction. In addition to his copious writings he was editor of the Rambler’s Library, the Gypsy Journal and British Tourist. ‘Walker Miles’ grandson, Kenneth, recalls his mother Margaret Octavia [youngest of the Taylor’s eight children] telling that Sunday was family day and that rambles could be up to 25 miles!
‘Walker Miles’ contribution to rambling is legendary. His untimely death was mourned by thousands. At his funeral service there were representatives of many established walking clubs, Southern Pathfinders, Forest Ramblers, Federation of Rambling Clubs, Watford Fieldpaths Association and many more. His widow, Bertha continued to live at Willow House where she opened tearooms in his memory. In 1910 the family left England for the United States via Montreal, Canada. Diana Jones / April 2008
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Notes on the article.
W. H. Smith 1 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Smith_(1792%E2%80%931865)
.
W. H. Smith 2 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Smith_(1825%E2%80%931891)
.
http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/first-wh-smith-railway-bookstall
His son, William Henry Smith II (1825-91), who became a partner in the family business in 1846 at the peak of ‘railway mania’, saw the potential of the new technology more quickly than his father.
From the early 1840s, many stations had vendors (often superannuated or disabled railway employees) selling disreputable publications or soiled newspapers. Smith, though, who realised that reading was far less difficult on a train than on a swaying stage-coach, was convinced that the opportunity existed for a more professional business selling papers and cheap books to the thronging passengers (who made 60 million journeys between them in 1850, each visiting at least two stations). Euston, the London terminus for the London North-Western Railway, was his first chosen site, and in the summer of 1848 he began negotiations. The vendor in situ, an ex-LWNR messenger called Gibbs, was unceremoniously moved aside and the first WH Smith railway bookstall opened on November 1st.
By 1860 Smith’s bookstalls were to be seen on all main lines and many secondary ones. It was a cultural revolution, as well as a commercial one: The Times reported ‘a wholesome change in railway bookstalls… at the North Western terminus we diligently searched for that which required but little looking for in other places, but we poked in vain for the trash.’ In place of the ‘trash’, Smith provided ‘yellowbooks’ – cheap reprints of out-of-copyright volumes – while Longman’s brought out a ‘traveller’s library’ specifically for the new market, to supplement the newspapers.
Smith, a Dissenter dubbed ‘Old Morality’ by Punch (he had had to be dissuaded from a career in the church), insisted on vetting the quality of the books he sold and the content of the advertisements he displayed. His tastes, though, clearly were in accord with Victorian Britain, and the Smith’s bookstalls epitomised railway travel up to the Second World War and still flourish today.
Shoelbred’s – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Shoolbred
Maple’s – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_Blundell_Maple,_1st_Baronet
Whiteley’s – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Whiteley
Crisp’s – Crisp’s – Hounslow Draper?
Parkin and Gotto’s – Oxford Street, London – Stationers – http://www.victorianlondon.org/dickens/dickens-tyb.htm
Straker’s – Straker Brothers Ltd. 184-200 Bishopsgate, London, E.C.
John Piggott – John Piggott & Co. – opticians & camera makers – http://www.historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2665&
Gamage – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamages
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The Ernest Bell Library’s primary objectives are to: –
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Collect all of Ernest Bell’s book & non-book works and make them easily accessible to everyone.
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Collect the literature of vegetarianism and all the other humanitarian movements in which Ernest Bell was so deeply involved.
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Assist students and scholars in their research.
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Introduce all aspects of Ernest Bell’s life, including his writings, campaign work, influences and his circle of friends.
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Undertake our own research into missing aspects of Ernest Bell’s life and work.
We already have more than 300 pieces of Ernest Bell’s own writings.
We are also actively building a collection of examples of promotional material, campaign material, fundraising & marketing activities etc. – related to: –
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veg(etari)an products.
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veg(etari)an books & other publications.
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veg(etari)an organisations.
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veg(etari)an businesses.
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animal rights organisations.
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animal rights publications.
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humanitarian organisations.
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humanitarian publications.
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rambling clubs run by members of the above groups & related publications.
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the work of Richard St. Barbe Baker & the ‘Men of the Trees’ organization & its many sub-branches.
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