The Illustrated War News

Immediately on the outbreak of the First World War, in August 1914, Bruce Ingram,[1] the editor of the weekly publication 'The Illustrated London News' realised that there would be a massive appetite among the public for another weekly magazine which would bring updates from the war to his readership.

Although the market for these types of magazines was already probably 'saturated' (with weekly publications including The Graphic, The Sketch, and The Sphere) it would seem that the new publication was an immediate success.

The Illustrated War News

Each magazine comprised 48 pages (from May 1916, this became 40 pages) of articles, photographs, diagrams and maps. It was published weekly between August 1914 and April 1918, and ran to 192 editions.

The magazine was very 'topical' in that it covered current news about the war, with a minimal 'time lag'. For instance, the Gallipoli landings of 25 April 1915 were covered in issue 39 (dated 5 May).

Each weekly magazine initially cost 6d. (half a shilling), but during 1917 and 1918 the price increased to 9d. (In today's money, this works out at between £2 and £2.50.)

The first half of the magazine's production run (to 7 June 1916) came out in a horizontal (landscape) format, with a total of 96 editions published in this period. However, on 14 June 1916, what would have been issue 97 was issued in a vertical (portrait) format. Confusingly, this vertical series re-commenced at issue number 1, and a further 96 editions were published in this format.

Newly digitised

A full set of these magazines, which comprise over 9,000 pages, have been acquired and carefully scanned and made available to 'interrogate' via our 'Searchable Magazine Archive'.

This enables keywords to be searched in this and the other magazines. For instance, a search for 'periscope' in 'Illustrated War News' gives a total of 54 'hits'. A search for 'Baghdad' will give 64 hits in the pages of this particular magazine. Searching 'elephant' will result in 17 instances of this word being used in The Illustrated War News. 

Off-shoot of The Illustrated London News

As mentioned above, The Illustrated War News was a sister-publication of the well-established London Illustrated News which was first published in 1842. By 1863, The Illustrated London News was selling more than 300,000 copies every week - these were very high figures when compared to other British newspapers of the time. In 1903 the role of editor of the ILN was taken over by Bruce Ingram, the 23-year-old grandson of the paper's founder; he ran the company for the next 63 years, presiding over some significant changes in the newspaper.

Circulation figures for The Illustrated War News are unknown, but the end of the publication was clearly attributed to a war-time lack of paper, rather than poor sales. The last edition of The Illustrated War News was dated 10 April 1918, when production ceased (according to an editorial in this issue) due “to a serious shortage of paper”.

More about The WFA's 'Searchable Magazine Archive'

Using the Searchable Magazine Archive enables members to access tens of thousands of pages of content about the Great War across a dozen or so different publications.

Searching for words and phrases

It is possible (indeed recommended) to use the Searchable Magazine Archive to 'hunt out' material by using the 'search' function. Doing so, it is possible to locate and read matters that are of particular interest.

For example, searching for Birdwood appears eight times and Gallipoli 230 times. But care needs to be exercised as typing the word Mons gives 319 results, but this includes 'Monster', 'Monsoon' and 'Commons' etc.- to find the town, you will need to use double inverted commas, (ie searching "Mons"): doing so will result in 66 hits.

References

[1]  Sir Bruce Ingram (1877-1963) was Chairman of Illustrated London News and Sketch Ltd., Director of Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News Ltd, and President of Illustrated Newspapers Ltd. He also served in the First World War, ultimately as a Captain in the Royal Garrison Artillery.