SOUTHWOOD, JULIUS SALTER ELIAS, FIRST VISCOUNT

SOUTHWOOD, JULIUS SALTER ELIAS, FIRST VISCOUNT (1873–1946), British newspaper owner. The son of Polish immigrants who settled in Birmingham, England, and then moved to London, Southwood started his career in London as an office boy and became one of the leaders of the newspaper industry. At the age of 21 he joined the jobbing printers firm of Odhams Brothers. Four years later he was appointed a director and became managing director in 1920. From 1906 Odhams published Horatio Bottomley's populist and scurrilous weekly, John Bull, which at its peak sold two million copies. After Bottomley was jailed for fraud, Southwood rebuilt the firm, adding more newspapers and magazines with vast circulations. Among them were the Labor paper Daily Herald, which reached a circulation of 2,000,000, and the weekly, The People, with 3,000,000. Other papers Odhams controlled were John Bull, Illustrated, Sporting Life, Woman, and News Review. Southwood was the only one of Britain's leading "presslords" to support the Labour Party, serving as deputy leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords. Southwood associated himself with many charities and was chairman of funds in aid of hospitals, boys' clubs, children, and the blind. He was made a baron in 1937, taking the title of Lord Southwood, and a viscount in 1946. He was buried as an Anglican; his biography, Viscount Southwood, published in 1954 by R.J. Minney, makes no mention of the fact that he was Jewish.

bibliography:

H. Herd, March of Journalism (1952), 262; The Times (April 11, 1946). add. bibliography: odnb online.

[Irving Rosenthal]