WALTER, John (1818-1894), of 68 Russell Square, Mdx. and Bear Wood, Wokingham, Berks.

John Walter, the proprietor of The Times, was born at Printing House Square, London, and ‘trained from birth to exercise a potent and controlling influence in the counsels of a newspaper’ owned by his father.1The Times, 5 Nov. 1894. Deeply influenced in his youth by the Oxford movement, Walter is believed to have contemplated taking holy orders until he joined The Times as a business manager in 1841. Briefly withdrawing from his duties after his adherence to Puseyism led to a disagreement with his father over the editorial line on church issues, he was appointed joint-manager in 1846 with responsibility for the accounts and machining, and became chief proprietor upon his father’s death in July 1847, beginning a 47-year reign that was later described as ‘a conscious despotism that was, notwithstanding, ever benevolent’. 2The Times, 5 Nov. 1894; The History of The Times, 1841-1884 (1939), 26-30.

With his father’s return for Nottingham declared void on petition in 1843, Walter accepted an invitation from local Conservatives to contest the seat at the subsequent by-election, but, unable to cement the same alliance with local Chartists achieved by his father, he was defeated. Standing again in 1847, however, Walter topped the poll, even though, due to his father’s illness (he died the day of the poll), he had not participated in the campaign. Having stood on both occasions as a nominal Conservative candidate, in August 1847 he appeared before his constituents to explain his political sentiments, and declared ‘I acknowledge no man as my political leader. … [M]y political allegiance lies buried in my father’s grave’.3Daily News, 12 Aug. 1847. Although he rejected any party label, and entered parliament ‘free and unfettered’, Walter favoured the financial policy of Peel, including his currency bill.4Dod’s parliamentary register (1848); The Times, 11 Aug. 1847; Daily News, 12 Aug. 1847. However, despite his vote against the Russell ministry’s income tax bill, 3 Mar. 1848, Walter generally supported the administration, even voting in the minority over Palmerston’s amendment to the militia bill, 20 Feb. 1852.

Successfully returned as a ‘Liberal-Conservative’ at the 1852 general election, he continued to sit with the Liberals and voted against Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852. Although he divided in favour of John Roebuck’s motion of censure on the Aberdeen administration’s conduct in the Crimean war, 29 Jan. 1855, Walter, through the pages of The Times, demanded a successful prosecution of the conflict, believing that ‘when the country would go for war, it was not worth while to oppose it, hurting themselves and doing no good’.5Quoted in S. Koss, The rise and fall of the political press in Britain (1981), i. 105. For a detailed discussion of the role of The Times during the Crimean War see History of The Times, 166-192 With his newspaper declaring its support for Palmerston in October 1855,6The Times, 10 Oct. 1855. Walter subsequently backed the prime minister over his proposed policy for the 1856 peace conference,7Ibid., 321. and divided with ministers on Cobden’s resolution on the Canton question, 3 Mar. 1857. He also supported Russell’s amendment to the Derby administration’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859, even though he rejected Russell’s ‘invidious distinction between counties and boroughs’ and claimed to hold ‘opinions somewhat different from those which had been expressed on his side of the House’.8Hansard, 31 March 1859, vol. 153, cc. 1202-8.

Choosing to contest his home county of Berkshire as a Liberal in 1859, Walter, by now a supporter of a considerable extension of the franchise and the abolition of church rates, was returned unopposed.9The Times, 4 May 1859. As MP for Nottingham, Walter had not spoken with any great frequency. As member for Berkshire, however, he made over 80 known contributions between 1859 and 1865, although a number of his lengthier speeches were described as second rate and ‘tedious’.10The parliamentary diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858-1865 ed. T.A. Jenkins (1992), 119, 246-7. His most notable interventions were made during debates on education, a subject which often saw him voting against the Liberal ministry. On 5 May 1862, in a debate on the revised code of regulations for education, he moved a resolution that employment of certified masters should not be a condition of the participation of schools in the parliamentary grant, but, opposed by Palmerston, it was narrowly defeated. The same outcome occurred one year later when Walter moved the resolution again.11Hansard, 5 May 1862, vol. 166, c. 1271; 5 May 1863, vol. 170, cc. 1154-1180. Although opposed to subscription to the 39 articles, Walter divided against Gladstone’s tests abolition (Oxford) bill, believing that the proposed legislation would throw open membership of the university’s governing body ‘to all persons indiscriminately, without the application of a theological test’12Hansard, 16 Mar. 1864, vol. 174, cc. 153-4. He also opposed Liberal ministers on endowed schools, arguing, on principle, that government should not use the value of a school’s endowment, whether large or small, to determine the size of an educational grant.13Hansard, 2 June 1864, vol. 175, cc. 1075-9. On 12 Apr. 1864 he seconded Lord Robert Cecil’s motion of censure against the committee of council on education over the editing of inspectors’ reports before publication, which ultimately led to the resignation of Robert Lowe from the committee of council.14Hansard, 12 Apr. 1864, vol. 174, cc. 902-3. Walter’s behaviour, arguably motivated by his defeated amendment to the revised code of education regulations, 5 May 1862,15J. Winter, Robert Lowe (1976), 190-3. was particularly surprising as Lowe had written a number of articles for The Times under his proprietorship, though his subsequent apology to Lowe suggested ‘an uneasy conscience’.16D. Porter, ‘Walter, John (1818-1894)’, Oxf. DNB. www.oxforddnb.com. In 1865 Walter restated his desire to extend inspection and grants to unassisted schools, and successfully added an amendment on this subject to a motion calling for a select committee to inquire into the constitution of the committee of council on education, a select committee to which he was subsequently appointed.17Hansard, 28 Feb. 1865, vol. 177, cc. 858-96; PP 1865 (403), vi. 328.

Despite his opposition on educational reform, Walter was generally supportive of the Liberal government while sitting for Berkshire. Moreover, defending his seat in 1865, he stated that ‘the whole government of the country depends on party … and ought to be carried out by the Liberal party’.18The Times, 18 July 1865. Indeed, such was the level of support given to Palmerston by The Times, John Bright mockingly postulated that Walter would be elevated to a peerage ‘as a compensation for the services offered to the present prime minister of England’.19The Times, 27 Jan. 1864. The fielding of three Conservative candidates in Berkshire, however, proved to be too great an obstacle, and he finished fourth in the poll, though he was successfully returned again in 1868, and retained the seat until his retirement in 1885.

Throughout his parliamentary career, Walter sought to establish a distinction between his dual roles as proprietor of The Times and member of parliament.20Porter, ‘Walter, John’; Koss, Rise and fall, 71-2. In 1860, the criticism of Edward Horsman, the member for Stroud, who had been offended by an article in The Times that suggested members were willing to postpone franchise reform in order to delay a dissolution of parliament,21The Times, 30 Apr. 1860. led Walter to give a personal statement to the Commons, in which he denied ‘any responsibility for any opinion or statement’ published by the newspaper.22Hansard, 7 May 1860, vol. 158, c. 761. Horsman dismissed this rather unconvincing response, and argued that Walter was morally responsible for every word of it, a contention that drew ‘great cheers from the Tories’, who, according to Sir John Trelawny, rejoiced in seeing this ‘great delinquent’ held to account.23Trelawny diaries, 121 Moreover, despite Walter’s statement to the Commons, there is a general consensus among historians that Walter ‘exercised a distant but constant supervisory role’, and with his ‘marked and constant’ influence over the leader page, he was ‘a deciding voice in the policy and conduct’ of the newspaper.24T. Morley, ‘The Times and the concept of the fourth estate: theory and practice in mid-nineteenth century Britain’, Journal of Newspaper and Periodical History, i (summer 1985), 13; The Times, 5 Nov. 1894; O. Woods and J. Bishop, The Story of The Times (1983), 95.

The most important act of Walter’s proprietorship was arguably his decision, made in response to the abolition of the newspaper tax in 1855, to maintain a higher price for The Times, first 4d., then from 1861, 3d. Hostile to the new ‘penny press’, Walter was guided by moral considerations as much as economic ones, and believed that the higher price would uphold what he felt was the unique character of The Times: a mediator between the government and the governed that was ‘more conservative in its effects than any machinery that constitution-mongers can devise’.25Quoted in Porter, ‘Walter, John’; Woods and Bishop, Story of The Times, 96. His decision not to compete for circulation with the new popular press following the repeal of paper duty in 1861 was, up to a point, vindicated by his successful pursuit of innovation in printing technology. The key breakthrough occurred in 1868 with the invention by James Dellagana, an Italian typefounder, of the rotary press, a revolutionary process that allowed the printing of 12,000 eight-page papers in an hour. Although this innovation, which became known as the ‘Walter press’, allowed The Times to achieve average circulation figures of around 60,000, Walter’s insistence on maintaining a cover price of 3d. undoubtedly helped his rivals, and by the mid-1860s the paper was eclipsed in circulation by the Daily Telegraph.26History of The Times, 345-53; Porter, ‘Walter, John’. However, the circulation of the Telegraph and its contemporaries did not threaten the profitability of The Times, and with advertising rates increased, the paper’s annual dividends rose from £62,000 in 1861 to £89,600 in 1870, while the 3d cover price remained fixed until 1913.27Woods and Bishop, Story of The Times, 97.

Walter’s parliamentary career was remembered as ‘not one of great prominence’, and although he carried out his duties with ‘punctilious efficiency’, serving regularly on select committees, including inquiries into the free distribution of parliamentary papers, printing, and the copyright bill,28PP 1852-3 (720), xxxiv. 336; PP 1854 (434), vii. 304; PP 1864 (441), ix. 2. he was not rated for his speaking ability.29The Times, 5 Nov. 1894; History of The Times, 39. His claim, of 1860, that he was ‘an independent Member of the House, acknowledging no political leader’,30Hansard, 30 Apr. 1860, vol. 158, c. 351. had some substance, but at his election in 1847 he was ‘virtually a Peelite’31The Times, 5 Nov. 1894. and for the next 18 years generally voted with the Liberals, with whom he always sat. Recalled as moving ‘through life reserved and aloof, his handsome face redeeming an appearance which was otherwise unimpressive’, Walter died at his home on the family estate at Bear Wood after a short illness diagnosed as purpura, 3 Nov. 1894, and was succeeded as chief proprietor of The Times by Arthur Fraser Walter, the second son of his first marriage.32History of The Times, 39. His papers are held at the News International record and archive office, London.33News Int. RO, The Times archive, Walter MSS.