Hulton & Co. Pulblishing

Chris Dowgin

Our Founder, Chris Dowgin, has strong ties going back to nineteenth-century England and one of their largest publishing dynasties. Which was all ruined when the founder of that publishing interest became an arse.

So his great grandfather left England for New York to run a successful Broadway/Silent film poster print shop (JH Tooker),

marry an Irish wife (which was something since his mother was a daughter of an English lord), have 4 giant dancing daughters, and another son to name Edward. I think there has been an Edward in his family going back to the 1700s at least...

In defense of the arse, I think a relative of his was responsible for the Peterloo Massacre. See, we might have had Water Gate which inspired Clinton Gate and so on—they had Waterloo. Then Napoleon was in vogue and he recently got his arse handed to him at Water-LOO. So you get the hint. Well, this other arse led a cavalry charge into a union demonstration filled with women and children.

Then Chris’ great-grandfather’s father would leave his mark on history too. He founded the Clarion Movement, a great labor activist group. He founded it by firing Robert Blanchard for his liberal views who then went off to create the famous cycling club and its newspaper.

Edward S Hulton Publisher Printer Well, Chris' father's grandfather Edward S. Hulton created the Manchester Evening Chronicle (1897) and the Daily Dispatch (1900)

in Manchester, England, before running away to America and having his father replace him...

See Chris’ great-grandfather wanted to be a priest (a Catholic priest in England…), but he was pulled out of school to run his father’s newspapers. Which explains why Chris has one cousin who was a nun and a very Catholic grandmother. I believe the Hultons got dispensation way back when a Hulton saved Henry II in a battle, to be one of the few Catholic families in the UK.

Back in England, his great-great-grandfather finds someone, a Mr. Lytham, who looks enough like his son at a racetrack to continue in his place. Then the father dies within the year, in 1904, and leaves the dynasty to this ringer. Even though he has a new identity, this Mr. Lytham still would register his horses at the tracks under his real name.

See the dynasty was founded when Edward Hulton Senior would sneak into the Manchester Guardian

at night where he worked as a compositor to print a betting sheet. He loved horses. So after he got fired, he had a gentleman who owned lots of sheep finance the first of his athletic papers. Sports sheet turned into daily times and so on.

To the imposter’s credit, he will start at least three more papers, have an illegitimate son to pass the company to, and sell off most of their holdings in spite to lord, who would later turn into a Nazi sympathizer,

before he dies young in 1925 at 56 years of age.

In fact, 2 months before he dies, he ventures to NYC to find my great-grandfather to return the family fortune to him. In response, he said they were the Hultons of England and he was now the Hulton of America and they should keep their money. I think he took some money with him when he left England. His daughters were raised on the polo field, drove fast cars, and his home in 1940 was worth $15,000 (over twice the price of the median home at the time).

Now the Imposter's illegitimate son, he became the most famous appearing in James Herriot's All Creature's Great and Small and published England's answer to Life magazine, The Picture Post. His photographic archive would later merge with Getty to become the Hulton Getty Archive. So Chris is hoping publishing is in his genes or else he will have to resolve to live under a pile of leaves on the side of a hill like a Hobbit.....

So What Made him Leave?

In April 1891, Richard Hulton died. He was the rector at Graywood Hall. Did Edward see this as his chance to leave the publishing world behind and step into his cousin’s shoes, only to have his father forbid him? Instead, he stayed with the family business to only be brought into court. The paper printed a coupon readers could cut out and send it in with their choice of horses they believed could win in various races. The government took the promotion to be illegal betting, and Edward had to testify later that same month. He was barred from his true profession as he found himself in front of the bar in court.

Now, across the pond, in Jersey City, another Edward Hullton finds himself behind the bar too. This time for the attempted murder of his wife. He hit her on the head with a glass soda bottle on May 20th (The Evening World, Thursday, May 21, 1891, page 2, NY, NY).

He was born in Brooklyn and was last living in Jersey City with his wife. He was a fruit seller and a car agent. Now my great-grandfather was in NYC at the time and could have read the paper in May, since he would be on the City of Paris sailing back to Liverpool from NYC in June. Did he make an arrangement with the Jersey City Eddy to assume his identity?

Well Kept Secrets

Now does he look like a fruit seller?

Edward Hulton posing with a friend.

OK, well here he is in 1890...

Edward Hulton at 21.

It is funny; none of his grandkids figured he was wealthy? The house their parents grew up in was valued at $15,000, which was a little over twice the median price. It was modeled after President Taft’s home. They lived in Bergenfield in an affluent neighborhood. Edward made sure my grandmother and my Aunt Elvira graduated with an RN degree; Edmund became the vice president of Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), and Aunt Mary was executive secretary to the owner of another Fortune 500 company. For the boss printer at JH Tooker, he was doing quite well for his kids. My grandmother hobnobbed with Ozzie and Harriet at the Derby Hunt Club when they hired her to raise their son Ricky Nelson during the first year of his life. She bought this sports car from the job.

1944 Ford Coupe

Now Edward drove a Scripps Booth.

Scripps-Booth car

It was created by James Scripps Booth, who was born into the Scripps publishing fortune. Edward might have found a kindred spirit in him and the luxury car. Plus, this is how my grandmother and her family were dressed during the Great Depression:

Florence Hulton Dowgin on a horse.