William Howard Russell the first special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian John Black Atkins. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/the-special-correspondent/?_r=0' http://spartacus-educational.com/Jrussell.htm' William Howard Russell Sir William Howard Russell (28 March 1820, Tallaght, County Dublin, Ireland – 11 February 1907, London, England) was an Irish reporter with "The Times", and is considered to have been one of the first modern war correspondents. He spent 22 months covering the Crimean War, including the Siege of Sevastopol and the Charge of the Light Brigade. He later covered events during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the American Civil War, the Austro-Prussian War, and the Franco-Prussian War. As a young reporter, Russell reported
William Howard Russell of steel...". Following Russell's reports of the appalling conditions suffered by the Allied troops conducting the siege, including an outbreak of cholera, Samuel Morton Peto and his partners built the Grand Crimean Central Railway, which was a major factor leading to the success of the siege. He spent December 1854 in Constantinople on holiday, returning in early 1855. Russell left Crimea in December 1855 to be replaced by the Constantinople correspondent of "The Times". In 1856 Russell was sent to Moscow to describe the coronation of Tsar Alexander II and in the following year was sent to India where he