Union Jack

The Union Jack was a story paper of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There were two story papers called Union Jack. The first appeared in the 1880s but was only very short-lived. The name was then used by Alfred Harmsworth in 1894 for a new halfpenny storypaper intended as a companion to the successful Halfpenny Marvel.

Harmsworth considered it his moral duty to put the Penny Dreadfuls out of business, though some considered his papers to simply be “halfpenny dreadfullers”. The first issues of the Union Jack stated that it was a “Library of high class fiction”. The editorial at the end of the very first issue stated “there will be nothing of the ‘dreadful’ type in our stories. No tales of boys rifling their employers’ cash-boxes and making off to foreign lands, or other such highly immoral fiction products”.

The paper claimed to be offering good value by “securing the very best authors” but only presenting their stories on cheap paper, rather than “wasting” money on colourful bindings and high-quality paper. However, the actual quality of the stories, especially in the early years, could be variable. Also many writers used pseudonyms to make it appear that more people were writing for the paper than actually were.

The paper initially focused on Boy’s Own type adventure stories, set mainly around the British Empire and at sea. The very first story was entitled “The Silver Arrow” and featured the many trials of the hero across mountains and jungles in Mexico to rescue his wife-to-be from red Indians. Another type of story featured in the early days was the detective story, with the second issue featuring a tale of Sexton Blake. This was, in some sources, quoted as the first ever Sexton Blake tale, however, earlier ones had been published in the Halfpenny Marvel in 1893, so it was actually the fourth.

Even by issue 7, the editorial page announced a system of voting for the story that was liked best, to allow the writers to provide more of the type of story the readers wanted. Issues beyond this tended to concentrate on westerns (though set in British territories in South America and Canada rather than the United States) and detective stories, including another Sexton Blake story in issue 15.

As the 1900s began, Sexton Blake stories began to appear in more and more issues, and major plot developments in the overall Sexton Blake saga took place in the Union Jack (for instance the introduction of Tinker, his assistant). The “new” Union Jack paper began in 1903, a continuation of the old paper but with the price increased to 1d and the issue numbers being restarted these issues where labeled “New Series” for many years. In 1905 the paper became “Sexton Blake’s Own paper”, and featured a Sexton Blake story in every issue. In the 1920s an article in the centre appeared called “Tinker’s Notebook” which contained assorted items of interest, mainly relating to crime and punishment from around the world, supposedly related by Sexton Blake’s young assistant (in early issues the editorial contained a selection of interesting facts). This section was renamed “From information received” in the 1930s, and dropped the pretence of being written by Tinker. The serials, too, took on crime/punishment themes, serialising books by writers such as Edgar Wallace. They also contained serials specifically written by the paper, which at times were also Sexton Blake stories.

The First World War, and declining circulation, saw the end of many papers which had published Sexton Blake stories; however the Sexton Blake Library (started in 1915) and Union Jack continued.

Union Jack 50,152,153,158,159,160,164,170,173,175