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The real first lady of Fleet Street

Next month sees the publication of a book about the remarkable Rachel Beer, the woman who famously edited the Sunday Times and The Observer simultaneously.

Rachel cover

As the title indicates, she was First Lady of Fleet Street because she was the first female editor of national newspapers.

It helped that they were owned by her financier husband, Frederick, but she proved to be a woman of enormous energy, writing with equal enthusiasm for each paper for several years in the 1890s.

When editing The Observer she was credited with overseeing what would now be called, rightly, a 'world exclusive' - the revelation in 1896 that the document that had been used to convict the French military officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason was a forgery by his fellow officer.

Beer was regarded as both a rebel and a pioneer. At a time when women were still denied the vote, she was barred from frequenting the London clubs that fed her rival male editors with political gossip and also from the press gallery of the House of Commons.

Undaunted, she raised her formidable voice on national and foreign politics as well as taking a controversial stand on social and women's issues.

She was wealthy in her own right, as the scion of the Sassoon family that had amassed a fortune in Indian opium and cotton. Her marriage to Frederick Beer brought together two wealthy dynasties.

But it also brought her strife because her husband's father abandoned the Jewish religion, which led to Rachel being disowned by many of her proudly Jewish family. When her husband died, her family conspired to have her certified.

No wonder the book's sub-title refers to "the fortune and tragedy of Richael Beer". It was written by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, and is due to be published on 24 April.

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