Sir George Newnes

George Newnes was born on 13 March 1851, the son of a Matlock Congregational minister. He was educated at Silcoates School in Yorkshire and the City of London School. Launching his first publication Tit-Bits in 1881, he founded The Strand Magazine in 1891, which quickly became prominent for its serialisations and short stories by authors as diverse as Arthur Conan Doyle, P.G. Wodehouse and H.G. Wells. In 1893, Newnes launched a daily Liberal newspaper The Westminster Gazette, serving as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Newmarket between 1885 and 1895, and Swansea between 1900 and 1910. In 1896, Newnes met Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink in London, and two years later gave financial backing to Borchgrevink for his British Antarctic Expedition, 1898-1900. He was knighted in 1895 and died on 9 June 1910.