Bystander, a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 weekly tabloid magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

, featured reviews, topical sketches, and short stories

Short Stories

Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...

. Published from Fleet Street

Fleet Street

Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...

, it was established in 1903 by George Holt Thomas

George Holt Thomas

George Holt Thomas aviation industry pioneer and newspaper proprietor. Holt Thomas founded, in 1911, the business which became Aircraft Manufacturing Company Limited or Airco....

. Its first editor, William Comyns Beaumont

William Comyns Beaumont

William Comyns Beaumont, also known as Comyns Beaumont, was a British journalist, author, and lecturer. Beaumont was a staff writer for the Daily Mail and eventually became editor of the Bystander in 1903 and then The Graphic in 1932.Beaumont was an eccentric with several unusual beliefs, many of...

, later edited from 1928-1932.

It was notably popular in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 for its publication of the "Old Bill

Old Bill (cartoon character)

Old Bill is a fictional character created in 1914-15 by cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather. Old Bill was depicted as an elderly, pipe-smoking British "tommy" with a walrus moustache. The character achieved a great deal of popularity during World War I where it was considered a major morale booster for...

" cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

s by Bruce Bairnsfather

Bruce Bairnsfather

Captain Bruce Bairnsfather was a prominent British humorist and cartoonist. His best-known cartoon character is Old Bill...

.

It also published some of the earliest stories of Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier

Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...

 (Beaumont's niece) and some of the early work of Saki

Saki

Hector Hugh Munro , better known by the pen name Saki, and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy...

, including "The Pond".

The magazine ran until 1940, when it merged with the Tatler

Tatler

Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...

(titled Tatler & Bystander until 1968).