On  the  creation,  February  ist,  1916,  of  the  Grand  Fleet  Fund,  the
business  was  taken  over  by  a  Fleet  Newspaper  Committee  representing
that  body.i  and  by  January,  1917,  the  monthfy  sales  had  increased  to
;^i,588.  It  was,  however,  with  the  inauguration  of  the  Euston-Thurso
Special,  in  the  following  month,  that  the  greatest  expansion  was  brought
about,  attributable,  in  part,  to  the  acceleration  then  obtained  in  the
transport  of  the  papers,  and  especiedly  so  in  the  summer  months.  The
results  were,  indeed,  remarkable  in  their  way.  Early  copies  of  the
Manchester  edition  of  the  Daily  Mail  for  the  next  day's  issue  were  sent

*  The  Grand  Fleet  Fund,  brought  into  being  at  a  meeting  held  on  board  H.M.S.  Iron
Duke  and  presided  over  by  Admiral  Lord  JeUicoe,  was  formed  to  create  a  reserve  fund,
under  the  management  of  petty  officers  and  men  of  the  Royal  Navy,  for  the  purpose  of
giving  help  after  the  war  to  disabled  men  and  dependents  of  those  lost.  With  it  there
were  afterwards  affiliated  various  other  naval  funds  in  order  to  avoid  overlapping  and  to
secure  a  central  organisation.
