Filson Young

Filson Young (1876-1938): 20th century media pioneer

FY had Max Hastings’ warrior-journalist swagger, Jeremy Clarkson’s love of boys’ toys, Will Self’s ability to turn out a novel and an opinion, Melvyn Bragg’s easy interest in all the arts.

FY had Bernard Levin’s love of Wagner (but Filson actually wrote music too), Ludovic Kennedy’s interest in notable trials, John Birt’s influence on broadcasting policy.

In his biography, Filson Young: The first media man (1876-1938), Silvester Mazzarella (FY’s great-nephew) tells the story of a brilliantly articulate but also awkward, rather touching figure.

This is perhaps the first online literary biography (published by Richard D North, grandson of FY’s second wife, Vera Bax). In it we learn how a passionate and sensitive modernist – motorist, pilot, novelist, composer, editor, and war correspondent – reported from the forefront of a changing world.

Filson Young:

• wrote the first comprehensive guide to motoring
• wrote perhaps the first instant book, Titanic (1912)
• discovered James Joyce
• commissioned the first art film review (Agate on Chaplin)
• rode a horse into the Relief of Mafeking
• sailed with Admiral Beatty at the Battle of Jutland
• dined with Churchill and Reith
• was an Admiralty spy
• was the artist Dod Proctor’s lover

Now read on…

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