ABSTRACT

Th e d e e d of partnership establishing The Daily News (21 Jan. 1846) lists those who had invested capital in the project, principally Paxton and Bradbury and Evans, and the number of shares accruing to each but also names others who held 'literary shares’, allocated to those who supplied labour (in the form of editorial or printing work) rather than capital. These share­ holders were not required to invest any money but could participate in Proprietors’ meetings, though without voting rights. Dickens received ten such shares, equivalent, it has been calculated, to an investment of £4,000. He there­ fore stood to gain more from the enterprise than just a handsome salary (£2,000 p.a.), and this additional income would continue after he had ceased to be an employee. Bradbury and Evans became the paper’s 'managers’ with the right to appoint or remove anyone on the staff from the editor downwards. Dickens was, in fact, once more putting himself in a position he had found irksome whilst editing Bentley's though he seems to have been unconcerned about this in the general euphoria of launching the new paper.1