Born in 1849 in Northumberland, W.T Stead became the editor of the Nothern Echo in 1872, while still in his very early twenties. He immediately set about turning the newspaper into an 'engine of social reform'. Stead had a variety of social concerns, but perhaps the most taboo of them was prostitution, which proliferated in the cities and towns of the newly industrialised kingdom. It is 'the ghastliest curse which haunts civilised society, which is steadily sapping the very foundations of our morality' Stead wrote. In 1883, Stead became the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette , personally one of my favourite 19th century newspapers, but described as the 'Dunghill Gazette' by poet Algernon Swinburne. Stead's style of journalism, which could fairly be described as sensationalist, did lead to changes in legislation and policy, such as new housing law that came about through his 1883 attack on the slums, or the £3.5 million government investment that followed his...