Harmsworth, Alfred Charles William, 1st Viscount Northcliffe 1865-1922
Irish journalist and newspaper magnate

Born in Chapelizod, County Dublin, he was brought up in London and became one of the pioneers of mass circulation journalism. He was editor of Youth and, with his brother Harold Sydney Harmsworth, started Answers to Correspondents (1888). He founded Comic Cuts (1890) and an imitation, Chips, to discourage competitors. In 1894 he took over the London Evening News and sponsored the Jackson Arctic expedition. He also published some Sunday magazine papers and in 1896 revolutionized Fleet Street with his US-style Daily Mail. With Harold he bought the Sunday Dispatch and many provincial papers, pioneered the first newspaper for women, the Daily Mirror (1903), founded the Amalgamated Press for periodical and popular educational literature and acquired vast forests in Newfoundland for newsprint. In 1908 he became proprietor of The Times and in 1914 lowered its price to one penny to restore its falling circulation. An aspiring politician, he debated Lloyd George's policies during World War I, and his attack on Lord Kitchener in the Daily Mail reduced its circulation by nearly 300,000.

Bibliography: Henry Hamilton Fyfe, Northcliffe: An Intimate Biography (1930)