Amalgamated Press
of The Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, E.C., publishers of Answers, London Magazine, and about fifty other periodicals, magazines and part publications.
Formerly Harmsworth Brothers, Ltd
1890 Alfred Harmsworth and his financially astute brother Harold launched Comic Cuts, a pictorial magazine aimed at adults who read little or nothing. Together the brothers built up the Amalgamated Press Company, whose profits soon reached £50,000 a year; within five years Answers alone was recording net weekly sales of more than 1 million copies.
The brothers were in the forefront of popular publishing with their magazines, which included Boys' Home Journal, Marvel, Boys' Friend, Home Sweet Home, and Home Chat.
By 1892 the firm's combined weekly sales figure was 1,009,067, the largest of any magazine company in the world.
1894 The Harmsworths moved into daily journalism when William Kennedy Jones persuaded them to buy the derelict Evening News for £25,000; with Kennedy Jones's help they made it into a profitable newspaper.
1896 Alfred Harmsworth showed that he had the ability and the nerve to take the new journalism at the tide, when he launched the Daily Mail, a perfect example of the newspaper for the busy man in the age of hurry.
1896 Incorporated as a Limited Company. Chairman: Lord Northcliffe
1926 Purchased by the Berry brothers from Lord Northcliffe's executors under the nose of Lord Rothermere, his younger brother.
Amalgamated Press published over 70 magazines, a highly lucrative encyclopaedia and book section, and in south London owned three large printing works and paper mills.
1937 The partnership of the Berry brothers in Allied Newspapers was amicably dissolved. Each partner needed a distinct raft of holdings to pass on to his heirs; Lord Camrose assumed sole control of the Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, and Amalgamated Press; Lord Kemsley became proprietor of the Sunday Times.
In the early 1960s, acquired by the Mirror Group Newspapers, along with the George Newnes Co and Odhams Press; the three companies were merged to form International Publishing Corporation (IPC).