FRENCH, GEORGE H. (?-1843?). George H. French, newspaperman, came to Texas probably in 1838, when he joined his brother-in-law, Samuel Bangs, in the publication of the Galvestonian. In the early 1840s the two men were in Houston publishing the Mosquito^qv; they apparently returned to Galveston and were association with the Daily News, for on April 19, 1842, the earliest extant copy of this predecessor of the Galveston News was printed in Bangs's shop and listed George H. French as publisher. In April 1840 French and Bangs founded the Daily Courier at Galveston, with Joel T. Case as editor. For publishing remarks offensive to Judge Anthony B. Shelby, who presided over the Galveston and Houston district court, French was arrested, sentenced to a year in jail, and fined $1,000. The incident aroused the citizenry, and French's sentence was remanded, but ultimately he left Houston. In March 1841 French and Bangs issued the Daily Galvestonian, with French as editor. In 1843 French and G. L. Hamlin, probably still in association with Bangs, took over another Galveston Island paper, the San Luis Advocate^qv, which was renamed Texas Times. French died shortly thereafter in a yellow fever epidemic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sam Hanna Acheson, 35,000 Days in Texas: A History of the Dallas "News" and Its Forbears (New York: Macmillan, 1938). Joe B. Frantz, Newspapers of the Republic of Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1940). Douglas C. McMurtrie, "Pioneer Printing in Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 35 (January 1932). Marilyn M. Sibley, Lone Stars and State Gazettes: Texas Newspapers before the Civil War (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1983).