the conception of “tit-bits.”
The host joined eagerly in our talk until interrupted by the servant, who brought in a message. Quitting us for a moment, he returned with a smiling apology, and told me that in that brief space of time he had transacted a piece of business which certainly was not without its interest. A gentleman, it appeared—the son of a celebrated littérateur of a past day—had called to show some beautiful drawings by the celebrated “Dicky” Doyle, a relation of Dr. Conan Doyle. With Mr. Newnes—and it is thoroughly characteristic of the man—to close with a good bargain is but the work of a moment, and therefore I was not surprised, as he placed the dainty pictures before me, to learn that he had purchased them for reproduction in his world-famed magazine. After luncheon, Mr. Newnes suggested that we should retire to his billiard-room, to reach which we had to pass through his own special sanctum in which he dictates his letters, &c., to his private secretary—energetic Mr. William Plank, who has been with him for five hard working years—while he walks up and down the room. “I can always think better whilst I walk,” he explained to me; “indeed, I have recently had the study lengthened to give me more room.” By this time we were in the billiard-room, wherein stands a large English organ with upwards of four hundred pipes. And in this room, prowling round and round the billiard-table like a couple of wild beasts—for I also, like my host, think best upon my legs—and occasionally cannoning up against one another and recoiling with a laugh and a start, George Newnes told me the history of his interesting and successful life.
“My father,” he began, “was, at the time of my birth, the minister of Glenorchy Chapel, Matlock Bath. He was a very able man, and the best informed man you could meet. He kept me at school till I was about sixteen. I finished up at the City of London School, and, curiously enough, I am going to-night to reply for the House of Commons at a banquet given by the John Carpenter Club in honour of the Home Secretary, who was a City of London School boy. My father put me into a house of business in the City, at which I remained for a number of years, and then I went down to Lancashire to open up a branch of the business there. I settled in Manchester and married, there. One night, in 1880, when I was sitting at home reading the Manchester Evening News—and, by the way, it has never occurred to me before,” added Mr. Newnes, as a sudden thought flashed into his mind, “the very people who printed that paper were the same people who afterwards printed Tit-Bits for ten years—I came across a story, or some interesting account, which very much pleased me. I read it to my wife and said, ‘There, that’s what I call a real “tit-bit.” This paper, but for it, is to-day decidedly dull, because there is absolutely no news to put in it. Now, why cannot a paper be brought out which should contain nothing but “tit-bits” similar to this?’”
“And that really,” said I, much interested, as Mr. George Newnes paused for a moment in his journey round the billiard-table, and gazed absently at me while I lit a cigar and threw myself into an armchair, “and that really is how Tit-Bits came to be first thought of?”
the study.
“Yes,” he replied, as he started off once more, and I rose to follow in his track, “that was the first idea of my little green paper. But I was a whole year before I was able to carry it out. I was very busy in other matters, and had not much time to attend to it. But I never lost sight of the idea, and ever and anon the word ‘tit-bits’ would come to me with the force of a warning dream. I worked continually at the idea in my mind, and all my leisure thoughts were given up to it. In fact, I was constantly afraid—so convinced was I that the idea was a good one—that someone would bring it out before I could do so, and every Saturday morning, the usual day for new weekly papers, I used to look almost with painful anxiety to see whether there was a placard announcing that such a paper had appeared. But, however, nothing of the sort was brought out. The more I thought of it the more enamoured I became of the idea, till, in October, 1881, the first number appeared.” And as he spoke Mr. Newnes handed me the very first number of the now celebrated paper. “As soon as it was fairly started,” continued my host, “I gave up my other business and devoted myself to the editing and publishing of the paper. At first, the chief pieces in it were selected from books and periodicals—any sources, in short, that were not copyright. I would get an anecdote from one book, and something else from another, anything interesting, in fact, from wherever I could pick it up; of course, now we have a large list of original contributors, but at first that was the way in which it was compiled. In the early days, naturally enough, its circulation was confined chiefly to Manchester. There it simply ‘caught on’ immediately, and sold like wildfire. Why, the newspaper boys’ brigade,” continued Mr. Newnes, now fairly excited at the memory of that eventful Saturday morning, “sold something like 5,000 copies in two hours of the first number in Manchester alone. They came rushing back to the office, where I sat anxiously awaiting their news, full of the wonderful result. Tit-Bits was then, I felt certain, an assured success, and the public used to write to me to tell me of its popularity. I receive letters to this day, and especially from ministers and clergymen, who write to say that they recommend it because of the information it contains, and its instructive character, and, above all, because of the purity of its contents. Yet there are some clergymen who think there is some double entendre in the title Tit-Bits, and from its title that it is probably a paper they ought to speak against; and often, solely on account of its title, I believe they bracket it with all kinds of other literature of a low-class type, and in this way I suffer from the name.”
the birth of
“tit-bits.”