W.P. Crozier's Confidential Foreign Affairs Correspondence

W.P. Crozier's Confidential Foreign Affairs Correspondence 

Times Manchester Guardian William Percival Crozier was born on 1 August 1879 in Stanhope, County Durham, the son of a Methodist minister. After reading classics at Oxford and becoming a schoolmaster for a year, he became a journalist for the . After several months, he joined the in 1903. Crozier quickly impressed the newspaper's editor, C.P. Scott, who put him in charge of much of the newspaper's operations, including news gathering and reforming the foreign news service. Manchester Guardian Under Crozier's leadership, the consolidated its reputation as a paper of national and international renown. His journalistic passion was foreign affairs and he maintained a global network of correspondents with whom he communicated nearly constantly throughout his career, exercising a remarkable degree of control over their work and every detail of the newspaper's publication. In addition to pioneering the paper's coverage of foreign affairs, Crozier reformed the paper's format, drastically increasing the use of maps and photographs. He was responsible for the introduction of a women's page in 1922 and a daily crossword in 1929. Manchester Guardian After the premature death of C.P. Scott's son Ted in 1932, Crozier was made editor of the . The outbreak of the Second World War allowed him to expand the paper's coverage of foreign affairs. Crozier had been critical of Nazism since 1933, when Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany. A fervent Zionist and Biblical scholar, Crozier had a particular interest in the creation of a Jewish national home, Palestine, and the fate of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Manchester Guardian Crozier led the through the turbulent years of the war, offering incisive analysis of foreign affairs and continuing to write articles for the paper in addition to his editorial work. During this period, he navigated the paper through challenges such as wartime censorship, frequent air raids in Manchester, and paper rationing. He was renowned as a particularly meticulous editor, especially regarding grammar and the introduction of jargon and colloquial language into copy. Crozier regarded himself as the inheritor and protector of C.P. Scott's legacy of excellent journalism which was concise, correct, and clear. In the final years of his life, Crozier was plagued by ill health. He continued working until his death on 16 April 1944. 

W.P. Crozier's Confidential Foreign Affairs Correspondence