William Odhams; Odhams Bros. In 1834 William Odhams left
Sherborne,
Dorset, for London, where he initially worked for
The Morning Post. In 1847, he went into partnership with William Biggar in Beaufort Buildings,
Savoy, London; and in the 1870s he started the business known as
William Odhams. Originally a
jobbing printer and
newspaper publisher, William Odhams sold the business to his two sons, John Lynch Odhams and William James Baird Odhams, in 1892. The business, then a small printing firm in Hart Street employing about 20 people, became known as
Odhams Bros. Magazine and book publishing Odhams Limited was created in 1898.
Julius Elias, who left school at the age of 13 before going to work as an office boy at Odhams Bros, worked his way up to become managing director and eventually chairman of the firm, which after a merger with
John Bull in 1920 took the name
Odhams Press Ltd. That same year, the company also founded
Ideal Home and acquired the equestrian magazine
Horse & Hound. On 28 January 1918 the Long Acre print works was hit by a bomb during a German air raid. There were 38 killed and 90 injured; it was the most damaging single bomb strike in the German bombing campaign. Odhams acquired a 51% share in the
Trades Union Congress paper the
Daily Herald in 1930 (by that point, Odhams was already publishing
The Sunday People). A promotion campaign ensued, and in 1933, the
Herald became the world's best-selling daily newspaper, with certified net sales of 2 million. This accomplishment set off a war with more conservative London papers, such as the
Daily Express. By 1937 Odhams had founded the first colour weekly,
Woman, for which it set up and operated a dedicated high-speed print works. Odhams also expanded into book publishing, for example publishing
Winston Churchill's
Painting as a Pastime (1965),
Rupert Gunnis's
Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660–1851 (1953), and an edition of the complete works of
William Shakespeare. In the 1950s, Odhams was one of London's three leading magazine publishers – along with
Newnes/
Pearson and the
Hulton Press. Throughout the 1960s,
Odhams Books Ltd (likewise founded by Odhams Press) operated the Companion Book Club (CBC). This published a large series of hardcover novels.
Children's comics and acquisition by Fleetway/IPC Odhams published
Mickey Mouse Weekly from the 1930s (acquiring it from
Willbank Publications), which featured American reprints as well as original British
Disney comics material, including a number of non-Disney-related strips. Odhams lost the rights to Disney characters in 1957, and almost immediately launched the weekly comic
Zip, which inherited the non-Disney strips from
Mickey Mouse Weekly. In 1959, Odhams purchased
George Newnes Ltd as well as its imprint
C. Arthur Pearson Ltd. Notable comics titles originally published by Pearson and continued by Odhams included the
romance comics Mirabelle and
Marty, and the
Picture Stories and
Picture Library series. In 1959–1960, Odhams acquired
Hulton Press, renaming it
Longacre Press, thus taking over publication of the children's comics
Eagle,
Girl,
Swift, and
Robin. In 1960
Cecil Harmsworth King, chairman of the
Daily Mirror newspaper, made an approach to Odhams on behalf of
Fleetway Publications (formerly the
Amalgamated Press). Odhams' board found this too attractive to refuse and, in 1961, Odhams was taken over by Fleetway. In 1963 its holdings were amalgamated with those of Fleetway and others to form the
International Publishing Corporation (known as IPC). Between 1964 and 1968 Odhams operated as a subsidiary of IPC. Odhams' "juveniles" (i.e., children's comics) competed for readers with
DC Thomson, publisher of such popular titles as
The Beano,
The Dandy, and
Commando. Alf Wallace, who had found success at Fleetway with his line of
War Picture Library comics, was brought over to oversee Odhams' comics line. He was, however, unable to reverse the declining popularity of
Eagle and
Swift, or succeed with ''
Boys' World, launched in 1963. In fact, by early 1964, Swift
and Boys' World
had both been absorbed by Eagle
, which, along with Girl'', was then taken over by IPC. In desperation, Wallace recruited veteran cartoonist
Leo Baxendale, who had worked for DC Thomson for many years, to create a new, energetic comics weekly. As a result of this, and of IPC's desire to rationalise its titles and eliminate duplication, the comics published by the Odhams Press imprint were closed or transferred to
IPC Magazines Ltd, another IPC subsidiary. This contained the losses on the Power Comics range within Odhams, which was a limited company with separate liability, but, in consequence, Odhams became financially unviable. On 1 January 1969 it effectively ceased to exist as a publishing business, when publication of its last surviving comics title,
Smash!, was taken over by IPC. (In 1971,
Smash! merged with the IPC title
Valiant.) ==Watford Press Hall==