Beachcomber (pen name)
group of column writers
Beachcomber is a nom de plume that has been used by several journalists writing a long-running humorous column in the Daily Express. It was originated in 1917 by Major John Bernard Arbuthnot MVO as his signature on the column, titled 'By the Way'. The name Beachcomber was then passed to D. B. Wyndham Lewis in 1919 and, in turn, to J. B. Morton, who wrote the column till 1975. It was later revived by William Hartston, current author of the column.
"By the Way" column
"By the Way" was originally a column in The Globe, consisting of unsigned humorous pieces; P. G. Wodehouse was assistant editor of the column from August 1903 and editor from August 1904 to May 1909, during which time he was assisted by Herbert Westbrook. After the Globe's closure, it was re-established as a society news column in the Daily Express from 1917, initially written by social correspondent Major John Arbuthnot, who invented the name "Beachcomber".
After Arbuthnot was promoted to deputy editor, it was taken over sometime in 1919 by Wyndham-Lewis, who reinvented it as an outlet for his wit and humour. It was then passed to Morton during 1924, though it is likely there was a period when they overlapped. Morton wrote the column until 1975; it was revived in January 1996 and continues today, written by William Hartston. The column is unsigned except by "Beachcomber" and it was not publicly known that Morton or Wyndham-Lewis wrote it until the 1930s.
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This entry incorporates text from “Beachcomber (pen name)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.