Louis John Jennings

Who was Louis John Jennings?

Louis John Jennings was an English journalist and Conservative politician.

Jennings was born in Walworth, London, the son of John Jennings, a tailor, and his wife Sarah Michel. Following a period with the Saturday Review, he joined The Times newspaper and between 1863 and 1868 was its special correspondent, first in India and, from 1865, the USA, where he was successful in mending the paper's relations with the US Government following its support for the South during the Civil War. In 1868 he published his study of Eighty years of republican government in the United States. He then joined the New York Times of which he became editor from 1870 to 1876. As editor he was responsible for the exposure of the Tweed Ring and subsequently received a letter from Chester A. Arthur assuring him that his services to the citizens of New York would not be forgotten.

Jennings returned to London in 1876, following the failure of an attempt to secure financial control of the New York Times, and established a close working relationship with the publisher John Murray, both as book reviewer and author. His initial publications described walks in Sussex, Surrey and the Peak District of Derbyshire. He wrote a novel The Millionaire and in 1885 edited, in three volumes, the papers of John Wilson Croker.