The Illustrated London News 1950
Events of this year in the Illustrated London News
- January 21st - George Orwell, 46, died of Tuberculosis.
he loathed communist aims and tactics which inspired his books Animal Farm
and Nineteen Eighty-Four he was a strong socialist but the Spanish
Civil War, in which he fought, made him hate totalitarian communism
- February - The Labour Party was returned to power after
the General Election with a much reduced majority
- February 10th - Mark Spitz, American swimmer is born in
Modesto, California
- March 19th - Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan,
dies aged 74
- April 14th - First issue of the Eagle comic in Britain, Peanuts
by Schulz was also published in the USA
- May 26th - Petrol rationing came to an end in Britain
after 10 years
- June 7th - The BBC broadcast the first episode of The
Archers (could be 1951?)
- June 25th - The Korean War began, when North Korea invaded
South Korea across the 38th parallel, the United Nations was asked to aid
the South. The Americans sent forces (the war claimed 5 million lives)
- August 15th - Princess Anne, Princess Elizabeth's second child,
was born
- November 2nd - The death of George Bernard Shaw, 94, described
as an ardent socialist and apologist for the Soviet System, he had won the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925
- December - Scottish Nationalists removed the Stone of Scone,
on which King of the Scots had been crowned for centuries, from beneath the
Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey
- Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin announced at a luncheon
that he had a list of 205 Communist party members who were working in the
US State department!
- Douglas MacArthur appointed commander UN forces
- Klaus Fuchs imprisoned, guilty of betraying British Atomic
secrets
April 22nd
- BEA Viking aircraft, Vigilant, following a mid-air explosion which blew
a large hole in the port side of the fuselage. The pilot landed the aircraft
safely, and all passengers and crew survived.
- New York Motor Show, photo of the 'fastest car on earth', John Cobb's land-speed
record breaking Railton-Napier the world's first turbo-jet car, manufactured
by Rover; and the world's fastest stock-car, manufactured by Jaguar.
- Girton College, Cambridge, as it appeared in 1950.
April 29th
- Double page diagrammatic representation of the proposed new 'electric' submarine
and the latest converted surface destroyers and frigates. Lots of technical
information on these developments, and 'cutaway' detail showing inner workings
of the sub (with key).
- Latest waxwork models at Madame Tussaud's in London.
June 17th
- A diagrammatic representation (double page centrepiece, with key) of the
new 24,000 ton P&O ship RMS Chusan, the largest passenger liner completed
anywhere in the world in 1950. The Chusan is featured just one week before
her maiden voyage was to take place. (I was on the Orcades 28,000 ton)
- Harthope Viaduct, where five passengers lost their lives as a result of
a fire on board the Birmingham-Glasgow express train.
September 2nd
- Wreckage of the Irish Mail train from Holyhead which collided with a light
engine outside Penmaenmawr station in North Wales. Eleven of the sixteen coaches
were derailed, with six passengers killed and thirty five injured.
- The war in Korea,
- volunteer archaeologists at work on Roman mosaics discovered at Lullingstone
Park in Kent.
September 16th
- Colliery rescue: the great Knockshinnoch subsidence'. On September 7 there
was a huge subsidence of land at Knockshinnoch Castle Colliery (Ayrshire),
which blocked the main underground road trapping 129 men. Rescue attempts
were successful, but it took more than two days to reach the trapped men.
- Rare photographs of Mrs Maria Dicken, founder of the People's Dispensary
for Sick Animals in 1917, on the occasion of her eightieth birthday. She gave
her name to the 'Dicken Medal', more commonly known as the 'Animals' VC'.
- Photographs of aircraft from the Farnborough Airshow.
November 18th
- adverts = GUINNESS (Sportfolio No.11 - GE 1535) , HUNTLEY & PALMERS,
WHITE HORSE
- Contents includes : Queen Juliana at home,
- Nepal :the deposed King and members of the Rana family,
- the Centenary of the "Tusitala",
- the funeral of King Gustaf V. of Sweden,
- Tongking scenes,
- the war in Korea
November 25th
- Dramatic photographs of the scene of the Canadian Skymaster aircraft tragedy.
The plane crashed in the alps south-east of Grenoble, on its return journey
to Montreal. In all, fifty-one passengers and seven crew lost their lives.
The dead included several nuns and twelve priests returning from a holy year
pilgramage. The images include part of the wreckage, and depict some of the
250 rescuers who climbed the mountain to bring down the bodies.
Adverts from 1950s
During the 1950s the Illustrated London News marked a series of memorable events;
the Festival of Britain (1951 vol. 218) being followed nine months later by
the death and funeral of King George VI and then by the new Queen’s coronation
(1953 vol. 222). However, by the early 1960s the press in Britain had reached
its full potential in terms of attracting new readers and the competition had
turned inwards for a larger share of the existing market. The advent of television
after the War also re channelled a lot of advertisement revenue away from newspapers
at a time of rising production costs. Before the War there had been seven successful
weekly magazines, but by the end of the decade only the Illustrated London News
remained.
Christmas Number 1950 No. 3316A, Vol. 127,
