The White House, Clifton Marine Parade, Gravesend

Image: © Marathon Taken: 5 Apr 2012

These were formerly the offices of the Imperial Paper Mills as can be seen from the war memorial to the left of the door - see http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2885705, and the plaque to the right of the door to Viscount Northcliffe - see http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2533057 In 1888 Alfred Charles William Harmsworth launched a magazine called ‘Answers’ that eventually made him enough money to launch a new title called ‘Comic Cuts’ on 17 May 1890. It was the first halfpenny comic paper with cartoons and strips mainly from American publications. It was extremely popular with a readership of some two and a half million by 1892 so Harmsworth launched a string of juvenile papers based on this and the development of new printing methods. Harmsworth rationalised the range of publishing businesses as Amalgamated Press in 1901 based in Farringdon Street, London. He went on to found the Daily Mirror newspaper and became owner of The Times. He was knighted, becoming Lord Northcliffe and died in 1922. Amalgamated Press occupied premises on the riverside here at Gravesend and traded as Imperial Paper Mills, to process the pulp into newsprint, from the early 1900s through to the 1980s when the paper industry declined locally.

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