Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere
Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, PC (26 April 1868 – 26 November 1940) was a leading British newspaper proprietor who owned Associated Newspapers Ltd. He is best known, like his brother Alfred Harmsworth, later Viscount Northcliffe, for the development of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. Rothermere was a pioneer of popular tabloid journalism, and an enthusiastic proponent of closer links between the UK and Nazi Germany of which he was a prominent British admirer.
The Right Honourable The Viscount Rothermere PC | |
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Lord Rothermere | |
| President of the Air Council | |
| In office 26 November 1917 – 1918 | |
| Preceded by | The Viscount Cowdray |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Weir |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| In office 27 June 1919 – 26 November 1940 Hereditary Peerage | |
| Succeeded by | Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Harold Sidney Harmsworth 26 April 1868 London |
| Died | 26 November 1940 (aged 72) Bermuda |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse | Mary Lilian Share |
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| Parents | |
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| Occupation | Publisher |
Two of Rothermere's three sons were killed in action during the First World War and in the 1930s, he advocated instead peaceful relations between Germany and the United Kingdom, and used his media influence to that end. His open support for fascism and praise for Nazism and the British Union of Fascists contributed to the popularity of those views in the 1930s. That ambition, for which Rothermere became best known, was not successful, and he died in Bermuda early in the war.