Charles Lapworth (13 June 1878 – 26 October 1951) was a British-born socialist activist, journalist and film promoter.
In the years prior to World War I Lapworth was an activist in the cause of syndicalist socialism, supporting industrial unionism and the international solidarity of the labour movement. He was the editor of The Daily Herald from late 1912 to December 1913, during which the newspaper developed a radical voice supporting unionism, the suffragette movement and the class struggle. After a dispute regarding his editorial style he left the Herald and worked as an editor for the Daily Mail during the early months of the war. By early 1916 he had settled in Los Angeles with his family, where he edited the arts and culture magazine The Graphic.
From 1918 he became involved with the motion picture industry, working initially as a publicist for Charlie Chaplin. In 1920 he returned to England where he worked as the director of promotion and publicity for Goldwyn Pictures. He later served on the boards of Gainsborough Pictures and Whitehall Films in Britain. By 1930 Lapworth had returned to the Los Angeles area where he undertook various roles connected with the film and entertainment industry.
Biography
Early years
Charles Lapworth was born on 13 June 1878 at Portobello in Willenhall, Staffordshire, the son of Isaac Lapworth and Mary Ann (née Parker). His father was a coal miner.Family records, Ancestry.com.
Lapworth received his early training as a journalist working for the Yorkshire Press newspaper.Notable Londoners, an Illustrated Who's Who of Professional and Business Men (1922), London: London Publishing Agency, page 66; accessed 26 August 2024.
Socialism
Lapworth travelled to the United States and accompanied Eugene V. Debs on his 'Red Special' railroad campaign in the lead-up to the 1908 presidential election. Debs was running for president as the candidate for the Socialist Party of America and Lapworth took on the role as a publicist for the campaign, as well as promoting the Industrial Workers of the World and speaking about socialism in Britain.'The Tour of the Red Special', The International Socialist Review, December 1908, Vol. IX No. 6, pages 401-415.'"Red Special"; Eugene V. Debs and the Campaign of 1908', Indiana Magazine of History, September 1958, Vol. 54 No. 3, Indiana University Press, pages 211-236.Henry M. Pelling (1957), America and the British Left: From Bright to Bevan, New York: New York University Press, page 105.
After he returned to Britain, Charles Lapworth and Else Minna Louise Fritz were married on 20 January 1909 at Pontefract in Yorkshire. The couple had two children, a son named Norman (born in 1913) and a daughter named Nikita (born in 1921).
Lapworth contested the seat of Sheffield Brightside, as a candidate for the Social Democratic Party, in the January 1910 general election. He was put in as a candidate at short notice after the previous candidate had stood down. The election was won by the Liberal Party candidate, with Lapworth receiving less than five percent of the vote.Joyce M. Bellamy (1972), Dictionary of Labour Biography, Clifton, New Jersey: Augustus M. Kelley, page 84.
By about 1911 Lapworth and his wife were living in Italy, investigating the socialist movement there; in his own words: "Mrs. Lapworth and I were leading the lives of tramps in Italy".The New Freewoman, Vol. 1 No. 2, 1 July 1913, page 40. Lapworth reported for London's Daily Mail newspaper, covering the Italo-Turkish War in the Ottoman province of Tripolitania Vilayet (northern modern Libya), fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from September 1911 to October 1912.'Tripoli and Young Italy', Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, 1912, page 921. During the conflict Lapworth, in collaboration with Helen Zimmern, wrote Tripoli and the Young Italy, published in about August 1912. One reviewer described the book as "an ex parte statement, from the Italian standpoint, of Italy's claim to Tripoli", presenting "the reasons why Italy had the right to seize upon Tripoli". Italy's aggressive campaign was characterised as "the seizure of the territory of a friendly power in the midst of profound peace", another instance "of the application of the modern doctrine of might is right".New Books, The Age (Melbourne), 14 September 1912, page 4.1911, a Libyan Jihad, Information Section of the Libyan Arab People's Bureau, 1982. A review of the book in The Nation commented that "one readily gains the impression that [Lapworth] is presenting a semi-official brief on behalf of the Italian Government".The Nation, Vol. 95 No. 2473, 21 November 1912, page 488.
The Daily Herald
After returning to England, in about September 1912 Lapworth was appointed as the editor of the Daily Herald, replacing Rowland Kenney. The Herald had been established in April 1912 as a permanent daily newspaper supportive of the labour movement, but independent of the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress. In its previous incarnation it had been a daily strike bulletin during a period of considerable political upheaval in Britain, with Asquith's Liberal government challenging the powers of the House of Lords and organised agitation for female suffrage and industrial conflict leading to a large number of strikes.Will Dyson, Spartacus Educational website, Spartacus Educational Publishers Ltd.; accessed 29 September 2023.Bob Holman (1990), Good Old George: The Life of George Lansbury, Oxford: Lion Publishing, page 79.
Lapworth's appointment to the role of editor of the Herald was encouraged Charles Granville, a publisher who had promised to put four thousand pounds into the newspaper, during a period when its finances were particularly dire.Huw Richards (1997), The Bloody Circus: The Daily Herald and The Left, London: Pluto Press, pages 15, 17. Under Lapworth's editorship the pages of the Daily Herald became more sympathetic to a syndicalist agenda which emphasised the primacy of industrial workers within the structure of society. Strike action was encouraged as a means of enforcing solidarity amongst workers and controlling the means of production in the process of achieving a post-capitalist society.Raymond Postgate (1951), The Life of George Lansbury, London: Longmans, Green & Co., pages 138-142. Lapworth himself has been described as "a committed syndicalist".R. J. Holton (1974), 'Daily Herald v. Daily Citizen, 1912-15: The Struggle for a Labour Daily in Relation to "The Labour Unrest"', International Review of Social History, Vol. 19 No. 3, 1974, page 358. Coinciding with Lapworth's appointment as editor was the recruitment of the Australian cartoonist Will Dyson, who was initially paid five pounds a week and given carte blanche to engage in the expression of his ideas.Vance Palmer (1949), 'Will Dyson', Meanjin, Vol. 8 Issue 4 (December 1949), page 214. Dyson developed a dramatic visual language, often featuring symbolic representations of labour and capitalism.Will Dyson and the Fat Man, Daily Herald (Adelaide), 14 July 1913, page 4. With Lapworth as editor new typefaces were introduced and Dyson's radical cartoons were given a full page and regularly featured. Industrial news in the Daily Herald was presented under the regular heading of "The War That Really Matters". The opinions published in the newspaper were "accompanied by a greater venom"; Lapworth and his colleagues "were not content to attack the system, but denounced everyone who compromised with it".
The Labour politician George Lansbury had assisted with the relaunch of the Herald in April 1912 and was the chairman of the journal's board of directors. In October 1912 he resigned from parliament in protest at the treatment of suffragettes and their imprisonment. By about mid-year 1913 Lansbury began to devote his attention to the Daily Herald.'George Lansbury', Spartacus Educational website; accessed 2 September 2024. In June 1913 the company operating the newspaper, the Daily Herald Printing and Publishing Society Ltd., was forced into liquidation due to "a want of working capital".'The Affairs of a Labour Newspaper', The Times (London), 11 September 1913, page 3. A new private company, The Limit Printing and Publishing Co., was then formed to run the newspaper, with Lansbury and Lapworth as directors. The expenditure was cut down to £500 a week, reducing the weekly production shortfall to £200, "which several anonymous rich friends of Mr. Lansbury guaranteed to make good". Francis Meynell, representing the anonymous benefactors, was added to the board of directors.Charles Lapworth, 'Letters to the Editor: Why I Left the "Daily Herald"', The New Age, 18 December 1913, Vol. XIV No. 7, page 217. Lansbury was a Christian socialist and disapproved of aspects of the editorial direction of the Herald. In October 1912, for example, he had publicly objected to the published description of the Labour MP Philip Snowden as a traitor to the labour movement.
On 1 December 1913 Lapworth was summoned to a meeting of the board members, held the following day and attended by Lansbury, Meynell and himself. Lansbury, who was on the eve of departing for a visit to the United States, began by asking Lapworth to resign from the position of editor, adding: "Either you go out, or I shall refuse to have anything more to do with the paper". Lansbury explained that the reason for his request was "a fundamental difference between his own frame of mind" and Lapworth's. He expressed that he wanted the newspaper "to stand for the class war, but not class hatred and attacks on persons of another class", adding: "Hatred of conditions, by all means, but not of persons". Lapworth's reading of Lansbury's words was that the Herald was to be allowed to retain its 'kick', "but it must have a feather-bed tied round its foot". He, as the editor of "a militant working-class paper", was being "taken to task for uncomplimentary references to a duchess, to a bishop, to a prominent Fabian, and for a cartoon of a certain Labour member of Parliament". Lapworth refused to resign, after which Meynell moved that Lansbury be appointed editor in his place. Lapworth voted against the proposition and Lansbury, as chairman, "used his casting vote and declared himself appointed editor". Lapworth, as a "graceful concession" to Lansbury, then formally resigned and left the office. Lapworth attempted to have his written account of the meeting published in the Daily Herald, but it was declined by the new management. His account was published in the 'letters to the editor' pages of The New Age of 18 December 1913.John Shepherd (2002), George Lansbury: At the Heart of Old Labour, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, page 148.'The Daily Herald', Spartacus Educational website; accessed 2 September 2024. In The New Age of 1 January 1914 letters in support of Lapworth were published, as well as letters from the management committee of the Herald and Francis Meynell claiming that Lapworth's account of the December meeting was inaccurate.'Letters to the Editor: Mr. Lapworth and the "Daily Herald"', The New Age, 1 January 1914, Vol. XIV No. 9, pages 283-284; see also: 'Letters to the Editor', The New Age, 8 January 1914, Vol. XIV No. 10, pages 315-316. Lansbury did not exercise day-to-day editorial control of the Herald until February 1914, after he returned from the United States.