Silvester Bolam


Silvester Bolam was a British newspaper editor.
Born in Tynemouth, Northumberland, Bolam studied at the University of Durham's Armstrong College before joining the Newcastle Journal. He then moved to work for the News Chronicle, and in 1936 became a sub-editor on the Daily Mirror. Although he left in 1938 to rejoin the News Chronicle, he returned ten months later, and in 1948 became the newspaper's editor.
As editor, Bolam focused on a strategy of sensationalism, and was able to make the Mirror Britain's best-selling daily newspaper. In March 1949, after publishing material which might have prejudiced the trial of John George Haigh, he was jailed for three months for contempt of court. By 1953, he had fallen out with the paper's editorial director and resigned. He died a few months later.