Edward Lloyd

In St Margaret's church Westminster is a memorial tablet to Edward Lloyd, publisher and newspaper proprietor who died in 1890. He also had a stained glass window in the church, by Edward Frampton, but most of this was destroyed by enemy action in the Second World War. Only a few parts of this survive on the north wall above the tablet - the remaining scene shows William Caxton showing his printing press to the king and queen. The lost panels showed scenes of Our Lord as a carpenter, angels, and two figures which bore scrolls with the name E. Lloyd one holding a printing press and the other a newspaper.

The tablet is of mosaic with a red veined alabaster border. The inscription is in black with a gold border and the coats of arms of the City of London and of Westminster are shown. The lines in the inscription were composed by Sir Edwin Arnold and read:

To the glory of God and in memory of Edward Lloyd. Born February 1815. Died April 8th 1890. "A master printer of the press, he spake by mouth of many thousand tongues; he swayed the pens which break the sceptres; good Lord make thy strong ones faithful and thy bold afraid". Edwin Arnold.

He was the son of a Welshman but was born in Surrey. He started out with shops in London selling penny books and became a publisher of "sensational" literature. As a journalist he published the popular Lloyd's Illustrated London Newspaper from 1842, soon to be called Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, and in 1876 bought the Daily Chronicle turning it into a daily national paper. He married Isabella MacArthur in 1834 and his second wife was Maria Martins. Altogether he had 19 children, including son Frank (1854-1927). He lived in Delahay Street, Westminster and is buried at Highgate cemetery.