London Editors Who Are Women

Mr. Rudolph De Cordova sketches the women editors of London, with portraits, in Cassell’s Magazine. He says:—

Among the publications thus edited are the Sunday Times, by Mrs. F.A. Beer; the Westminster Budget, by Miss Hulda Friederichs in conjunction with Mr. F. Carruthers Gould; Baby and Womanhood, by Mrs. Ada S. Ballin; the Nursing Record, by Miss Rita Shell; the Ladies’ Field, by Mrs. E. Macdonald; the Green Sheaf, by Miss Pamela Colman Smith; the Onlooker, by Mrs. Harcourt Williamson; and the Churchwoman, in part by Miss Gertrude Ireland Blackburne.

He rightly gives the place of honour to Miss Friederichs. He says:—

The first woman journalist to be engaged on exactly the same terms, both with regard to work and to pay, as the men on the staff of an important London daily paper with which she was connected is Miss Hulda Friederichs. Of all the women journalists in London, it is safe to say she is the most brilliant linguist. Indeed, it was her facility in tongues which won her place on the Pall Mall Gazette. Having got acquainted with Mr. Stead when he was about to edit that paper, he asked her to join him as his secretary, and in a little while she began contributing to the paper. Mr. Stead made no difference between his contributors on account of sex. He exacted precisely the same standard of work from men and women, and considered that work should be paid for in exactly the same way—a fact worth insisting on, as it by no means generally obtains even to-day.

Five women have had the pleasure of combining the functions of proprietor and editor:—

Mrs. Bedford Fenwick shares with Mrs. Woodhull Martin and Mrs. George Conrwallis West, as they did with Mrs. Fenwick Miller and Mrs. Arthur Stannard, when they were editors, the distinction of owning her own paper.