Tit Bits

British weekly magazine was founded in October 1881 by publisher George Newnes at his then headquarters in Manchester. He relocated to London in 1886 and could arguably be referred to as the 'founding father' of modern journalism. One of its contributors was Alfred Harmsworth the eventual founder of the Daily Mail and Arthur Pearson who created the Daily Express. The magazine appeal soon reached a circulation of half a million by the end of the century and was to become the first magazine to sell over a million copies. It offered its readers an eclectic mix of tit-bits of stories both factual and fictitious and stories by authors that included Rider Haggard and later science fiction by Isaac Asimov. Other noted contributors included P. G. Wodehouse

By the outbreak of World War II pin-ups began to appear on the magazine's cover and by the mid-1950's sales reached their zenith with a circulation of over 1,000,000. In 1973 a slight name change occurred when Tit-Bits abandoned the hyphen and six years later it merged with Reveille and changed yet again into Titbits. The magazine finally ceased publication when in June 1984 IPC Magazines who now owned the magazine closed it after a prolonged wage dispute and the publication's circulation had dropped to a mere 200,000. The magazine's name survived as a glossy top-shelf adult monthly, Titbits International.