Frank Harris (journalist)
British journalist; co-founder and first editor of the Jewish Telegraph (1950–1979)
| Frank Harris
| |
|---|---|
| Died | July 1979 |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Journalist; newspaper editor and publisher |
| Known for | Co-founder and first editor of the Jewish Telegraph |
| Spouse(s) | Vivienne Harris |
| Children | Paul Harris |
Frank Harris (died July 1979) was a British journalist who founded the Manchester-based Jewish Telegraph with his wife, Vivienne Harris, in 1950, and edited it until his death.[1][2]
Jewish Telegraph
His son, Paul Harris, described him as "a London Jew" who, two years after the foundation of Israel in 1948, set out "to provide the large Manchester Jewish community with its own paid-for newspaper". He wrote that his parents started the Jewish Telegraph "with a borrowed typewriter and £50 capital" to compete with the free Jewish Gazette and The Jewish Chronicle.[1] The Manchester Evening News reported that Frank Harris was "a freelance journalist from London" who came to Manchester and found that the only Jewish publication there was a free sheet, and that the couple started the paper from their dining room in Salford.[2] The Herald reported in 2000 that in fifty years the paper had had only two editors, Frank Harris and his son.[3]
According to Paul Harris, The Jewish Chronicle responded to the Telegraph's growth by buying the ailing Jewish Gazette, moving it to city-centre offices and starting a Leeds edition, and the Telegraph's contract printer gave six weeks' notice. He wrote that by the early 1960s the Telegraph was selling more copies in Manchester than the Gazette and the Chronicle combined, and that a Leeds edition of the Telegraph was launched in 1976.[1] The historian David Cesarani dates The Jewish Chronicle's purchase of the Jewish Gazette to April 1954, and records that the Jewish Telegraph was also printed in Manchester.[4]
Death
Paul Harris wrote that his father "died suddenly on press day in July 1979", and that he took over the paper at the age of 28.[1][3]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Paul Harris, All hands on deck The Guardian, 11 December 2000, accessed 7 November 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Alice McKeegan, Founder of Jewish Telegraph, Vivienne Harris, dies aged 89 Manchester Evening News, accessed 7 November 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Fifty years of informing the faithful The Herald (Glasgow), 9 December 2000, accessed 7 November 2026.
- ↑ David Cesarani, The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry, 1841–1991, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 197.