Algernon Borthwick, 1st Baron Glenesk

Algernon Borthwick, 1st Baron Glenesk JP (27 December 1830 – 24 November 1908), known as Sir Algernon Borthwick, Bt, between 1887 and 1895, was a British journalist and Conservative politician. He was the owner of the Morning Post (which merged with The Daily Telegraph in 1937).

Background and education Borthwick was the son of Peter Borthwick, editor of the Morning Post, and Margaret, daughter of John Colville, of Ewart, Northumberland. He was sent to King's College School.

Career Borthwick started his career in journalism in 1850 as the Morning Post's Paris correspondent. After his father's death in 1852, he became managing editor and within seven years had paid off the newspaper's financial debt to paper manufacturers Thomas Bonsor Crompton. Borthwick gave the paper "a strong political colour, Conservative, Imperialist and Protectionist ... [and the paper became] the principal organ of the fashionable world". However, the election was declared void on account of bribery of electors, causing a by-election. In April 1880, Borthwick was given a knighthood by Disraeli in Disraeli's resignation honours. In the mid-1880s, Borthwick played a role in popularizing the Primrose League, an organisation dedicated to spreading Conservative principles in the UK. On his retirement from the House of Commons in 1895, Borthwick was raised to the peerage as Baron Glenesk, of Glenesk in the County of Midlothian.

Borthwick's political career increased the influence on the Morning Post and the newspaper soon became "one of the great organs of opinion on the Conservative side." Lady Bathurst eventually inherited The Morning Post. The Hon. Oliver Borthwick (1873–1905), who predeceased his father, dying aged thirty two unmarried and without children.

Lord Glenesk died in November 1908, aged 77, when the title became extinct. Glenesk was interred in the Glenesk Mausoleum in East Finchley Cemetery. The mausoleum had been designed and built for Glenesk by Arthur Blomfield in 1899, and also held the remains of his wife, and his son, Oliver. The mausoleum was later listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England.