New Deer to New York

This month marks the centenary of the world’s first business journal, Forbes magazine of New York. It was created by a boy from New Deer, Aberdeenshire – Bertie Forbes. His headmaster at the local school, Gavin Greig, spotted the boy’s talented essays and suggested that he should become a journalist.

He got Bertie a job on the Peterhead Sentinel and from there Bertie worked on the Dundee Courier for a spell before moving to a paper in Johannesburg. While he was there, he caddied for wealthy businessmen and became fascinated by their conversations.

He decided that business writing was the job for him and that there was only one place to do that kind of writing – New York. Bertie arrived there in 1904, aged 24. As he had no contacts in the Big Apple, he found it difficult to get a job, but eventually the Journal of Commerce gave him a start, at the lowest level.

He began to write business articles, slipping them onto the desk of the features editor, who more or less ignored them. However, when he finally read through a piece, he was impressed and soon Bertie’s writing was being syndicated across America under a variety of pen-names.

Randolph Hearst was looking for a top business writer and had to choose between his two favourites – both of which turned out to be Bertie Forbes!

After working with Hearst for five years, he came up with the idea that there should be a magazine devoted to business matters and so Forbes Magazine came into being in 1917.