H. D. (Henry Duff) Traill

Born in Blackheath in 1842, Henry Duff Traill was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St John's College, Oxford. He was called to the bar, but his career turned toward writing and journalism instead, and he became known as a lively essayist, critic, and satirist.

Traill wrote for important London papers and journals, including the Pall Mall Gazette and the St James's Gazette. He also edited The Observer for a period and, in 1897, became the first editor of Literature, a weekly paper founded by the proprietors of The Times. Alongside journalism, he published biographies, essays, and literary studies, building a reputation as a versatile and witty commentator.

He died in 1900. Even though journalism occupied much of his working life, reference sources from the period and later summaries alike remember him as more than a newspaperman: a broad-minded literary figure whose best work combined intelligence, style, and a taste for pointed observation.