The Wolverhampton Express and Star and the depiction of the volunteer soldier in the First World War, 1914-1916

This thesis examines Britain’s provincial evening press during the era of voluntarism in the First World War. It uses as its example, the Express and Star, the evening newspaper in the Black Country industrial town of Wolverhampton. The newspaper harnessed the home front’s fascination with the volunteer soldier for its own commercial purposes. The study demonstrates that the commercial nature of the press was a central element in shaping the newspaper’s depiction of the volunteer soldier between the outbreak of war in August 1914 and the introduction of conscription in January 1916. Using both advertising and journalistic techniques, the Express and Star adopted the figure of the volunteer soldier as a commercial mascot in order to attract readership and generate favourable publicity to satisfy advertisers. The newspaper was fortunate in that the volunteer also fitted its Liberal tenets of self-determination and freedom of the individual. The study explains the significance of the wartime provincial evening press as being the daily newspaper reading of people in a working-class town like Wolverhampton. It sets the patriotic figure of the volunteer in the context of the commercial press, the development of human-interest journalism and the Liberal views held by the owners and Editor of the Express and Star. The evidence shows how the patriotic figure of the volunteer soldier was absorbed into, and then shaped by, the increasingly sophisticated business model of the provincial evening press. This required constant effort to maintain and increase readership to attract advertising. The volunteer soldier became a central figure in this sales drive.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wolverhampton

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Faber, Adrian

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Badsey, Stephen

• newspapers
• press
• new journalism
• First World War
• propaganda
• Wolverhampton

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence

• https://wlv.dspace7.openrepository.com/bitstreams/3e262bf3-e2d3-46ec-b170-f16332db6abe/download