In general, however, both newspapers declined in circulation under her editorship. This was considered to be largely due to Rachel Beer’s persistence and she was much admired by her fellow journalists. In 1899 Esterhazy admitted his lies and Dreyfus was released. However, Esterhazy then retracted his confession and sued the Observer for libel. Rachel Beer published successive articles relating to Esterhazy, which led to calls for a retrial for Dreyfus. This had been the basis of the case against Dreyfus in what became known as the Dreyfus Affair. In 1898 she personally obtained a confession from Ferdinand Esterhazy, the French major (and German agent) who had forged the document setting out the military secrets that Captain Alfred Dreyfus had allegedly passed on to the Germans. Rachel Beer was a member of the Institute of Journalists and of the Institute of Women Journalists. In 1893 she acquired The Sunday Times (founded in 1821), and continued to run both newspapers with varying degrees of supervision and involvement until 1903. A pioneer newspaper editor and manager, Rachel began to submit first letters and later articles to The Observer, before becoming assistant editor and subsequently editor of the paper. In 1870 Julius Beer had bought the oldest Sunday paper in England, The Observer (founded in 1791), which he passed on to Frederick, who, himself not physically strong, in turn involved his wife in operating the publication of the paper. Among the guests were Prime Minister and Mrs. The wedding took place at the Holy Trinity Church in Sloane Street. Rachel was the second member of her family to intermarry, following after her brother Alfred Ezra Sassoon (father of the poet Siegfried Sassoon), to the great disapproval of her mother. In 1887, at the age of 29, she married Frederick Arthur Beer, son of a London financier, Julius Beer, originally from Frankfurt. She worked for two years as an unpaid hospital nurse at the Brompton hospital in London and then remained in London. Together with her brothers, Rachel was educated privately, first by visiting tutors and then by a resident one. She spent her remaining years confined to her country estate. The following year she was certified insane, possibly from syphilis contracted from her husband. In 1903, Beer’s fortunes took a turn for the worse-her husband died and Beer also became ill, retiring from her editorship of both newspapers. When Esterhazy retracted his confession and sued her for libel, Beer published further investigative articles until Esterhazy admitted the truth and Dreyfus was released in 1899. In 1898, during the international furor of the Dreyfus Affair, Beer published a confession from Ferdinand Esterhazy exonerating Dreyfus. In 1893 she also acquired The Sunday Times. Her father-in-law, a wealthy financier, had bought The Observer in 1870 and passed it to his son, but Frederick’s prolonged illness meant Rachel Beer had to take on increasing responsibilities for the paper, first as a journalist and eventually as the editor. Rachel Sassoon Beer rose to fame as owner and editor of both The Observer and The Sunday Times, making her the first woman to edit a national newspaper. Born to a noted Bombay family and raised in England, Beer married Frederick Arthur Beer in 1887.
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