Henry Sampson

Who was Henry Sampson?

Henry Sampson was an English newspaper proprietor and editor.

Sampson was the son of a journalist. At the age of twelve he entered a printing office in London, and became successively a compositor and proof-reader. From youth he was devoted to sport, and excelled as a boxer, runner, and sculler until he was twenty-three, when he was disabled by an accident to his left foot.

In 1866 he was engaged by Samuel Beeton to contribute sporting leaders to the Glow-Worm and the Weekly Dispatch. Afterwards he joined the staff of the Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical Review, and early in 1869 was appointed editor of that journal. On its collapse on 19 March 1870 he became the first editor of the Latest News, a penny Sunday paper of sixteen pages, which ceased after No. 57 on 25 Sept. 1870. In 1870 he was engaged as a leader-writer on the Morning Advertiser, and started contributing to Fun. During the illness of Thomas Hood the younger he acted as sub-editor of Fun, and after Hood's death in 1874 conducted the paper until February 1878. In 1875, 1876, 1877, and 1878 he edited Fun Comic Annual, and wrote stories for its pages.

Early in 1872 he started sending to the Weekly Dispatch, under the signature of ‘Pendragon,’ letters of general criticism on sport. Developing the scheme, he, on 19 Aug. 1877, as part proprietor and editor, under the same pseudonym of Pendragon, started a weekly sporting paper, The Referee. Its success soon enabled him to give up his other engagements and confine himself exclusively to his own paper for the remainder of his life.