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{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2013}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2013}}
[[File:Horniman_cartoon.jpg|thumb|Caricature]]
'''Benjamin Guy Horniman''' (1873 – 1948) was a British journalist and editor of ''[[The Bombay Chronicle]]'', particularly notable for his support of Indian independence.

== Early life ==
Horniman was born in Dove Court, [[Sussex]], [[England]], to William Horniman, Paymaster-in-Chief in the [[Royal Navy]], and his wife Sarah, and was educated at [[Portsmouth Grammar School]] and later at a military academy.<ref name="indiavideo">{{cite web|title=B.G. Horniman|url=http://www.indiavideo.org/text/b.g.-horniman-1083.php|accessdate=30 November 2012}}</ref>

== Career as a journalist ==
Horniman began his journalistic career at the ''Portsmouth Evening Mail'' in 1894. Before coming to [[India]] in 1906 to join the ''[[The Statesman (India)|Statesman]]'' in [[Calcutta]] as its news editor, he had worked with several dailies in England including the ''[[Daily Chronicle (United Kingdom)|Daily Chronicle]]'' and the ''[[Manchester Guardian]]''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kaul|first=Chandrika|title=Reporting the Raj: The British Press and India, c. 1880-1922|year=2003|publisher=Manchester University Press|pages=274}}</ref>
In 1913, he became editor of ''[[The Bombay Chronicle]]'', a daily founded by [[Pherozeshah Mehta]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Essay on the History of Early Newspapers of Indian|date=24 November 2011|url=http://www.preservearticles.com/essay-on-the-history-of-early-newspapers-of-indian.html|accessdate=30 November 2012}}</ref> The paper adopted a trenchant anti-colonial voice and became a mouthpiece of the freedom movement under Horniman. Following the [[Jallianwala Bagh massacre|Jallianwala Bagh Massacre]], Horniman managed to smuggle photographs of the incident and broke the story about the massacre and its aftermath in the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party's]] mouthpiece the ''[[Daily Herald (UK newspaper)|Daily Herald]]''. The exposé broke through the censorship on the matter and unleashed a wave of revulsion in the British public over the incidents and the Hunter Commission.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kirpalani|first=S K|title=Fifty Years With The British|year=1993|publisher=Orient Longman|location=Bombay|pages=63|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OVBA1IjwI2gC&q=benjamin+guy+horniman&pg=PA63|isbn=9780863113369}}</ref> One of his correspondents, Goverdhan Das, was imprisoned for three years. Horniman himself was arrested for his coverage of the massacre and criticism of the colonial government and deported to London, and the ''Chronicle'' closed down (temporarily).<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=xRet5_1oHLgC&pg=PA63&dq=benjamin+guy+horniman&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ohdrUc_8HKXH0QHP9oGQCQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=benjamin%20guy%20horniman&f=false In The Districts Of The Raj]</ref>

In England he continued his journalistic crusade against the colonial government and authored ''British Administration and the Amritsar Massacre'' in 1920. He returned to India a few years later and resumed the editorship of the ''Chronicle''. In 1929 he launched his own newspaper, the ''Indian National Herald'' and its ''Weekly Herald''.<ref name="indiavideo" /> He later resigned from ''The Bombay Chronicle'' to start the ''Bombay Sentinel'', an evening newspaper which he edited from 1933 for 12 years.<ref>{{cite book|last=Panigrahi|first=D N|title=India's Partition: The Story Of Imperialism In Retreat|url=https://archive.org/details/indiaspartitions00grah|url-access=limited|year=2004|publisher=Routledge|pages=[https://archive.org/details/indiaspartitions00grah/page/n374 346]|isbn=9780203324882}}</ref>

In 1941, Horniman, along with [[Russi Karanjia]] and Dinkar Nadkarni, founded the tabloid ''[[Blitz (newspaper)|''Blitz'']]''.<ref>{{cite news|title=Russi Karanjia dead|url=http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=2916&pg=1&mod=1&sectionId=10|accessdate=22 April 2013|newspaper=The Hoot|date=1 February 2008}}</ref>

== Role in India's freedom struggle ==
Horniman served as vice president of the Home Rule League under [[Annie Besant]] and called for a satyagraha campaign against the [[Rowlatt Act]] in 1919 through [[The Bombay Chronicle]] and at public meetings. When [[Gandhi]] formed the Satyagraha Sabha to launch a national campaign against the Rowlatt Act, Horniman was made its vice-president.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Read|first1=Anthony|title=The Proudest Day: India's Long Road to Independence|date=1997|publisher=Jonathan Cape|location=London|page=163}}</ref> His decision to print an unofficial, smuggled report on the [[Jallianwala Bagh]] [[Jallianwala Bagh massacre|massacre]] in defiance of government censorship resulted in his deportation to the United Kingdom by the British colonial government.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Read|first1=Anthony|title=The Proudest Day: India's Long Road to Independence|date=1997|publisher=Jonathan Cape|location=London|page=173}}</ref>

== Death and legacy ==
He died in 1948. The [[Horniman Circle Gardens]] in Mumbai, formerly the Elphinstone Circle, were named in his honour.<ref>{{cite web|title=Mumbai Architecture: 20 Places to Visit|url=http://goindia.about.com/od/mumba1/ss/Mumbai-Architecture_8.htm|accessdate=30 November 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=LAYERS OF HISTORY - Most Indian street names honour little men for the wrong reasons|url=http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050625/asp/opinion/story_4910612.asp|accessdate=22 April 2013|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=25 June 2005}}</ref> His memoirs, unfinished at the time of his death, were entitled ''Fifty Years of Journalism''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Iyengar|first=A S|title=Role of Press and Indian Freedom Struggle: All Through the Gandhian Era|year=2001|publisher=A P H Publishers|location=New Delhi|isbn=9788176482561|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pAJDpBQhBlcC&q=b+g+horniman+journalist&pg=PP4}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
*[https://archive.org/stream/selectionsfromsp00hornuoft/selectionsfromsp00hornuoft_djvu.txt A FRIEND OF INDIA: SELECTIONS FROM THE SPEECHES AND WRITINGS OF B. G HORNIMAN]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Horniman, Benjamin Guy}}
[[Category:English newspaper editors]]
[[Category:English male journalists]]
[[Category:People educated at Portsmouth Grammar School]]
[[Category:1873 births]]
[[Category:1948 deaths]]
[[Category:English expatriates in India]]
[[Category:British journalists]]
[[Category:Indian independence activists]]
[[Category:People from Sussex]]
[[Category:British editors]]

B. G. Horniman - Revision history

imported>Citation bot at 13:23, 17 July 2021