Robert Ackrill
Robert Ackrill was an English journalist, newspaper proprietor, founder of newspapers, printer and writer, working for most of his career in Harrogate, England. During the 19th century he owned six newspapers in the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire, via his company Ackrill Newspapers, having founded three of them. Ackrill's descendants and relatives continued to run or be involved with Ackrill newspapers for at least a hundred years, the final incarnation of the company under that name being dissolved in 2020.
Ackrill was involved in the initial stages of the setting up of Harrogate Borough Council, and as Charter Mayor he met the train bringing its Charter of Incorporation from London, as part of a local celebration. He was a Provincial Grand Officer of the Freemasons for the West Riding. He was a public speaker who influenced local affairs, having some effect on decisions concerning the construction of Harrogate's railway lines and stations. He was a Liberal, involved in the Corn Laws agitation and the Chartist Movement. His funeral was a significant event in Harrogate, with local worthies, Freemasons, tradesmen and others accompanying the coffin to Grove Road Cemetery.
Background
Ackrill's father was clock and watch maker Samuel Ackrill of Worcester, and his mother was Margaret Louisa. Ackrill was born in 1816 on The Tything, a road in Worcester, England. He was baptised on 11 November 1816 in Claines, Worcester. Ackrill's nephew was Joseph Ackrill, a journalist on The Times. Ackrill's great nephew and son of Joseph, Charles Ackrill, was the war correspondent of The Madras Times. Joseph Ackrill was attending his uncle Robert Ackrill's funeral when news of Charles' death in India was received.In 1839, Ackrill married Emma Day. At Claines on 1 January 1845 he married Caroline Day who was from Pershore. He had three children with Caroline: John William "Jack", Ellen and Thomas Samuel, who was born in Leeds. In the 1830s or 1840s, Ackrill moved from Worcester to Leeds or Harrogate spa, for the sake of his wife's health, although his newspaper obituaries do not specify which wife. By 1861, Ackrill and his wife Caroline were living in Royal Parade, Low Harrogate.
Career
Worcester
Ackrill was apprenticed to the owner of The Worcester Herald, where he was trained as a compositor, and printer. On completion, the apprenticeship earned him freedom of the city of Worcester, because in that era the freedom of the city could be inherited from a master who had that freedom. During Ackrill's working life, that practice ceased, but The Worcester Journal reminisced on how it worked:In former times, a workman became a freeman by virtue of being apprenticed to one who was a freeman, and by himself taking up his freedom before the Mayor. Before the borough franchise was lowered, a working man thus often obtained a vote to which he would not have been entitled by his tenure of property. There was no dual vote. Then, of course, there was the distinction of being an accredited citizen of no mean city , besides certain mundane privileges in the form of grazing rights on Pitchcroft, and of preference in application for certain almshouses.
Before he had completed his apprenticeship, " had developed such qualities as a newspaper reporter" that he was given a permanent job as a journalist, and he "became well known in the Worcester district".
Leeds
When Ackrill arrived in Leeds in the 1830s or 1840s, he met, and was influenced by, Samuel Smiles who was then employed by the Leeds Times, and was later to write Self Help in 1859. After working on various newspapers in the North of England, Ackrill was hired as a journalist on the Leeds Mercury, where "he was a colleague of some of the best known and most successful writers of the time. He followed the late John Bright and Richard Cobden throughout the Corn Law agitation, and was in the thick of the Chartist Movement". He had the chance of a "desirable position" on The Times and other "flattering offers" emanating from London, but had to decline them due to his wife's health.Harrogate
When stationer and printer William Dawson started up Harrogate's first newspaper, The Harrogate Herald, in May 1847, Ackrill was hired as editor, although he was still living in Leeds. He was "the first shorthand writer to give reports of local proceedings". He was then aged 30 years, and it was not long before he bought the paper from Dawson. It was a humble beginning for a newspaper owner, with the paper being transported to Harrogate from its printer in Leeds by mule and cart. On one occasion the mule "went lame" and the drivers had to pull the cart. He subsequently founded the Herald Printing Works in Harrogate.By 1871, Ackrill was describing himself as a letterpress printer, and master of eight men and five boys. Ackrill was a Liberal who took part in local political activity, so when he purchased the Herald from Dawson, that newspaper' began a rivalry with the town's other paper, the Conservative Harrogate Advertiser, which was founded 1836 and run by Thomas Hollins. When the Advertiser became too successful in the 1870s, Ackrill bought it as a sister paper to the Herald, and founded Ackrill Newspapers. He expanded the business and bought The Ripon Gazette, and also founded The Bedale and Northallerton Times, The Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale Herald, and The Knaresborough Post, "all of which newspapers became... the recognised local organ of their respective districts". Of those newspapers, the Harrogate Advertiser still exists. As of 2018, The Bedale and Northallerton Times still existed as The Thirsk, Bedale and Northallerton Times, a weekly with a tiny circulation.
Ackrill was a benefactor to Harrogate, and "did good service to Liberalism as a journalist during the Corn Law agitation, and for many years afterwards". For a long time before the end of his career, he was "designated the "father of reporters" in Yorkshire, and The Athaenium called him "one of the oldest of provincial journalists".
Robert Ackrill spawned a dynasty which kept Ackrill Newspapers running for a long time. In 1878, Ackrill's editor for the Herald, William Hammond Breare, married Ellen, Ackrill's daughter. Breare edited the Herald for fifty years, and members of the Breare family remained involved with the paper for at least a hundred years. Ackrill's son Jack was proprietor of Ackrill Newspapers by 1881, and was involved with the business until 1915. Robert Ackrill Breare, son of W.H. Breare and Ellen Ackrill, ran Ackrill Newspapers until 1955, when his son William Robert Ackrill Breare took over. Robert Roddick Ackrill Breare was the last of the dynasty to run the company, from 1957 to around 1985, when the company was sold to United Newspapers. The company name survived under various ownerships until its last incarnation was incorporated on 12 May 1982, and dissolved on 5 November 2020.