Charles Molloy Westmacott (c. 1788 - 1868) was a British journalist and author, editor of The Age, the leading Sunday newspaper of the early 1830s. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Bernard Blackmantle.
Born in 1787 or 1788, Westmacott claimed to be the illegitimate son of the sculptor Richard Westmacott the Elder, although his political enemies claimed he was the son of a chimney sweep from Drury Lane. He was educated at St Paul's School an...
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Charles Molloy Westmacott (c. 1788 - 1868) was a British journalist and author, editor of The Age, the leading Sunday newspaper of the early 1830s. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Bernard Blackmantle.
Born in 1787 or 1788, Westmacott claimed to be the illegitimate son of the sculptor Richard Westmacott the Elder, although his political enemies claimed he was the son of a chimney sweep from Drury Lane. He was educated at St Paul's School and the Royal Academy. In 1827 he became editor of The Age, a Sunday newspaper which had started in 1825 and which specialized in scurrilous and satirical gossip about celebrities of the day.
Westmacott was savagely portrayed as the unprincipled gossip-monger 'Sneak' in Edward Bulwer's England and the English, and has been dubbed "the principal blackmailing editor of his day". While he did accept money to suppress publication of stories, this was legal until the 1843 Libel Act, and a recent treatment has argued that these practices were ...
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