ANOTHER interesting enterprise from the fertile mind of W F Tillotson was the Tillotson's Newspaper Syndicate.

W F thought of the value of stories as a help to circulation, especially of the weekly journals, and the firm became established as agents for the supply of fiction generally, to many parts of the world.

At first, some established writers turned up their noses when they heard of W F's idea; a provincial publisher putting their novels into cheap newspapers week by week? Confounded cheek of the man!

But soon his enthusiasm opened the eyes of the authors to the possibilities of the scheme, making them realise that through the syndicate they could reach thousands of writers they would not otherwise reach.

Many authors who may otherwise have remained obscure climbed to fame through the syndicate, and in the Tillotson section of the Bolton Archives are letters from many famous people who contributed their work for syndication, giving a vivid impression of the extraordinary array of authors who wrote for the syndicate.

Among them are Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Wilkie Collins, Gerald de Maurier, Anthony Trollope, R D Blackmore of Lorna Doone fame, H G Wells, J M Barrie, John Ruskin, Bernard Shaw, Arthur Conan Doyle.

W F became personal friends with many of the writers, and when he died an astonishing number of authors wrote letters of condolence.

After his death the syndicate continued, a brilliant by-product of the Bolton newspaper operation, and was sold just before the second world war to Newspaper Features Ltd of London. Robert Louis Stevenson H G wells