Queen (magazine)

Last updated
Queen
Queen (magazine) cover.jpg
Founder Samuel Beeton
Founded1861;163 years ago (1861)
Final issue1970;54 years ago (1970)
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageLondon

Queen (originally The Queen) magazine was a British society publication briefly established by Sam Beeton in 1861. It became The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle before returning to The Queen. In 1958, the magazine was sold to Jocelyn Stevens, who dropped the prefix "The" and used it as his vehicle to represent the younger side of the British Establishment, sometimes referred to as the "Chelsea Setin" under the editorial direction of Beatrix Miller. In 1964, the magazine gave birth to Radio Caroline, the first daytime commercial pirate radio station serving London, England. Stevens sold Queen in 1968. From 1970, the new publication became known as Harper's & Queen after a merger of two publications: Queen and Harper's Bazaar UK, until the name Queen was dropped altogether from the masthead. It is now known as Harper's Bazaar .

Contents

History

The Queen or The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle focused on aristocratic women in society beginning in 1862. In the late 1950s, under the editorship of Beatrix Miller, it was restyled to serve a younger readership defined by Miller in a style sheet. According to Clement Freud, who wrote for the magazine, Beatrix Miller's targeted reader had long hair, was named "Caroline", had left school at age 16, was not an intellectual, but she was the sort of person that one ended up in bed with.

When London became the focus of the Swinging 60s Jocelyn Stevens embraced designers including Mary Quant. She embarked upon a project to reverse the U.K. Pilkington Report that denied any demand for commercial radio in Britain. Stevens helped to finance a pirate radio ship project that was also named Caroline with the initial intention of extending the targeted reader as the targeted listener. When Radio Caroline first went on the air (from a ship that was also renamed Caroline), it operated from the editorial offices of Queen.

The Beatrix Miller style sheet for Caroline was given to contributing writers to the magazine because it gave authors an idea of whom they were writing for. Miller left the magazine to edit Vogue shortly after Radio Caroline began broadcasting. The magazine retired the Caroline style sheet under the direction of its new editor Jocelyn Stevens himself. When the radio station moved from the Queen magazine offices, a new explanation of how and why the name "Caroline" came to be used by the station was offered to the public in order to divert attention away from its original source. Queen was celebrated in this period for its society column, "Jennifer's Diary" (written by Betty Kenward), its astrologer, "Celeste", a variety of edgy writers and elaborate fashion photography, in particular David Bailey’s pictures of Twiggy. Elizabeth Smart, author of the prose-poetry classic, "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down & Wept" was Queen's books editor and columnist and wrote all the fashion copy for two years in the 1960s.

The history of the magazine and the history of the pirate radio station under the influence of Jocelyn Stevens more or less conclude with the passage of the Marine, &c., Broadcasting (Offences) Act 1967, In that year, Stevens decided to sell his to Michael Lewis of Oxley Industries, at the same time appointing Hugh Johnson as editor. The magazine changed from fortnightly to monthly publication and nearly doubled its circulation. By 1969 however, Oxley Industries had problems. Johnson resigned to write The World Atlas of Wine and Lewis sold Queen to Harper's Bazaar, who merged the titles, continuing to print it on Oxley presses.

A register of articles received for publication in Queen Magazine from 1909 to 1915 is in the papers of Margaret Heitland at the Women's Library in London. [1] [2]

See also

Citations

  1. "Catalogue description: Papers of Margaret Heitland". The National Archives. 18 December 2008. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
  2. "Catalogue description: Papers of Margaret Heitland". LSE Library Archives. Retrieved 4 June 2024.

Related Research Articles

<i>Harpers Bazaar</i> American monthly womens fashion magazine

Harper's Bazaar is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly Harper's Bazar. Harper's Bazaar is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the style resource for "women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture". Since its debut in 1867, as the U.S.'s first fashion magazine, its pages have been home to talent such as the founding editor, author and translator Mary Louise Booth, as well as numerous fashion editors, photographers, illustrators and writers. Harper's Bazaar targets an audience of professional women ranging from their twenties to sixties, who are interested in culture, travel, and luxury experiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swinging Sixties</span> Youth-driven cultural revolution centred in London in the 1960s

The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London denoted as its centre. It saw a flourishing in art, music and fashion, and was symbolised by the city's "pop and fashion exports", such as the Beatles, as the multimedia leaders of the British Invasion of musical acts; the mod and psychedelic subcultures; Mary Quant's miniskirt designs; popular fashion models such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton; the iconic status of popular shopping areas such as London's King's Road, Kensington and Carnaby Street; the political activism of the anti-nuclear movement; and the sexual liberation movement.

<i>The Strand Magazine</i> British monthly magazine

The Strand Magazine was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the first issue was on sale well before Christmas 1890. Its immediate popularity is evidenced by an initial sale of nearly 300,000. Sales increased in the early months, before settling down to a circulation of almost 500,000 copies a month, which lasted well into the 1930s.

Radio Atlanta was an offshore commercial station that operated briefly from 12 May 1964 to 2 July 1964 from a ship anchored in the North Sea, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England. The radio broadcasting vessel was owned, at that time, by Gordon McLendon and Clint Murchison of Dallas, Texas, and leased to a British company for day-to-day operations. It was named after Atlanta, Texas,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronan O'Rahilly</span> Irish businessman (1940–2020)

Aodogán Ronan O'Rahilly was an Irish businessman best known for the creation of the offshore radio station, Radio Caroline. He also became manager of George Lazenby, who played James Bond in one film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harper (publisher)</span> American publishing company

Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when it changed its name to Harper & Brothers, reflecting the inclusion of Joseph and Fletcher Harper. Harper began publishing Harper's Magazine, Harper's Weekly, and other periodicals beginning in the 1850s. From 1962 to 1990, the company was known as Harper & Row after its merger with Row, Peterson & Company. Harper & Row was purchased in 1987 by News Corporation and combined with William Collins, Sons, its United Kingdom counterpart, in 1990 to form HarperCollins, although the Harper name has been used in its place since 2007.

<i>La Croix</i> (newspaper) French Roman Catholic newspaper

La Croix is a daily French general-interest Catholic newspaper. It is published in Paris and distributed throughout France, with a circulation of 91,000 as of 2020.

<i>OK!</i> British magazine

OK! is a British weekly magazine that primarily specialises in royal and celebrity news. Originally launched as a monthly magazine, its first issue was published in April 1993. In September 2004, OK! launched in Australia as a monthly title – the magazine went weekly in October 2006. In 2005, a US version was launched, followed by an Indian edition in May 2006, a Spanish-language version in Mexico in 2006, a Bulgarian-language version in 2007 and a Spanish edition in 2008.

<i>South Bend Tribune</i> Daily newspaper and news website based in South Bend, Indiana

The South Bend Tribune is a daily newspaper and news website which is based in South Bend, Indiana. It is distributed in South Bend, Mishawaka, north central Indiana, and southwestern Michigan. It has been named as a "Blue Ribbon Newspaper" by the Hoosier State Press Association. It is the third largest daily broadsheet newspaper in the state of Indiana by circulation.

Radio Caroline is a British radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly and Alan Crawford initially to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly. Unlicensed by any government for most of its early life, it was a pirate radio station that never became illegal as such due to operating outside any national jurisdiction, although after the Marine, &c., Broadcasting (Offences) Act 1967 it became illegal for a British subject to associate with it.

Sir Jocelyn Edward Greville Stevens, was the publisher of Queen magazine and a London newspaper executive.

British <i>Vogue</i> British edition of fashion magazine Vogue

British Vogue is a British fashion magazine based in London and first published in 1916. It is the British edition of the American magazine Vogue and is owned and distributed by Condé Nast. Currently edited by Edward Enninful, British Vogue is said to link fashion to high society and class, teaching its readers how to 'assume a distinctively chic and modern appearance'.

<i>WSJ Magazine</i> Luxury news and lifestyle magazine

WSJ Magazine is a luxury glossy news and lifestyle monthly magazine published by The Wall Street Journal. It features luxury consumer products advertisements and is distributed to subscribers in large United States markets. Its coverage spans art, fashion, entertainment, design, food, architecture, travel and more. Kristina O'Neill was Editor in Chief from October 2012 to 2023. Sarah Ball, previously Style News Editor, became Editor in Chief in June 2023. Launched as a quarterly in 2008, the magazine grew to 12 issues a year for 2014. It was originally intended to be a monthly magazine named Pursuits.

Darya "Dasha" Alexandrovna Zhukova is a Russian-American art collector, businesswoman, magazine editor, and socialite. She is the founder of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and Garage Magazine.

Beatrix Molineux Miller, CBE was a British fashion and cultural magazine editor. She was editor of Queen from 1958 to 1964, and editor of British Vogue from 1964 to 1985.

Lucy Wood is a British fashion journalist specialising in women's consumer publishing.

Anna Harvey became Editorial Director of Condé Nast New Markets in 1997, was former Deputy Editor of British Vogue and former stylist and confidante to Diana, Princess of Wales. Her career at Condé Nast Publications spanned more than 30 years and she was regarded as one of the most significant contributors to the fashion industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordon McKenzie (journalist)</span>

(James) Gordon McKenzie was a British journalist and editor who worked for much of his career at the Daily Mail rising to be the paper's executive editor.

<i>Men in Vogue</i> British mens fashion magazine

Men in Vogue was a British magazine of male fashion from the same publishers as Vogue. It was first published in 1965, and ceased publication in 1970. The magazine was closely associated with the peacock revolution in English men's fashion in the 1960s for which Christopher Gibbs, an editor of the shopping guide in Men in Vogue, was a style leader with his "louche dandyism". Other editors of the magazine were Robert Harling and Beatrix Miller.

<i>The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle</i>

The Queen: The Ladies Newspaper and Court Chronicle or simply The Queen was a magazine created in 1864 in London. The title became "Queen in the 1950s, then "Harpers and Queen" in the UK and then part of the British Harper's Bazaar.

References

Further reading