James Pagan
James Pagan (18 October 1811 – 11 February 1870) was a Scottish reporter and managing editor for the Glasgow Herald and a noted antiquarian. He is credited with transitioning the Herald from a tri-weekly publication to one of the first daily newspapers in Scotland as well as greatly improving the standard of reporting in that country. Biography Early life James Pagan was born on 18 October 1811 in Trailflat, in the parish of Tinwald, near Dumfries. His father, also named James Pagan, was a bleacher. His mother was Elizabeth Blackstock. He was a relative of the poet Allan Cunningham, and kept up a frequent correspondence with his son, Peter.At a young age, his family moved to the town of Dumfries and he attended Dumfries Academy, where he learned a degree of Latin. Career in journalism After completing his education, Pagan was apprenticed as a compositor to The Dumfries and Galloway Courier, under John McDiarmid. He later became a local reporter for that newspaper and was noted as having a particularly engaging writing style. Having attended the funeral of Jean Armour, widow of Robert Burns and a close friend of Pagan's future wife, he produced for the Courier "an admirably graphic account" of the exhumation of Burn's body and how he had, as part of a phrenology examination, momentarily held the skull of the poet in his hands.Pagan eventually left his role at the Courier to become a partner in a printing firm in London, but this venture was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1839, he returned to Scotland and joined the staff of The Glasgow Herald. One of his first reports for the Herald was an account of the Eglinton Tournament of 1839. Later biographers point to this piece as proof that Pagan "was the first in Scotland who really understood that the public wanted something more and better than the bald and brief notices which then appeared of public events" and become "a stimulus in Scottish journalism." Pagan also provided unusually engaging accounts of local government and the proceedings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. During his time at the Herald, he also edited a smaller newspaper, entitled The Prospective Observer. Not long after he began writing for the Herald, his talents as a descriptive writer were recognised by the London press and he was offered a position as a reporter for The Times. Although he refused the position, he became a correspondent for the paper from 1857 until his death in 1870. In the early 1850s, the health of the Herald's editor, George Outram, began to deteriorate. Pagan was promoted to sub-editor and took over the editorial responsibilities of the newspaper until Outram's death in 1856. During his time as sub-editor, Pagan was credited with improving the newspaper's layout and with developing a "bolder" editorial tone, including the introduction of leading articles. In 1859, in response to the abolition of the Stamp Act, he converted the newspaper from a tri-weekly to a daily publication, setting the price