THE NORTHERN ECHO editor who rocked Victorian Britain by pouring publicity on the scandal of child prostitution is given a starring role in a new Channel 4 documentary series about the Victorians.

William T. Stead, is the focus of academics and writers on Victorians Uncovered: Maiden Tribute on Tuesday night over his controversial 1885 campaign to raise the age of consent for girls from 13 to 16.

Stead is The Northern Echo's most famous editor. He came to head the paper almost by accident.

After complaining that a letter he had written had been ammended he became a regular contributor and, eventually, editor.

Stead was at the helm from 1871-1880, during which time the paper reported on the Bulgarian Atrocities, prompting the famous Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone to say: "To read the Echo is to dispense with the necessity of reading other papers."

Stead moved from Darlington to the London Pall Mall Gazette in 1880 and set about campaigning to change society.

His decision to spend a month investigating the capital's underworld network of brothels on a "secret commission" led to a week-long series of salacious articles dedicated to the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.

Riots and a new moral crusade followed but Stead ended up in prison for three months after over-stepping his investigation by buying a 13-year-old girl from her mother and having her sent to a brothel.

Eliza Armstrong was unharmed but, according to Labour politician and journalist Roy Hattersley the prison sentence finished Stead's career.

Hattersley said: "Stead was a great journalist and to be a great journalist you have to be occasionally unscrupulous and Stead was in the end unscrupulous in a great cause. While the protection of girls and increase in the age of consent would have happened, Stead's campaign brought it forward five or ten years."

Academics Dr Rebecca Stott and Prof Jeffrey Weeks applaud Stead as an unlikely hero particularly as he had a habit of stopping to pray before entering a brothel.

Five years after his high-profile days, Stead became involved in spiritualism and left the Pall Mall Gazette before becoming the highest profile casualty on board the Titanic.

Victorians Uncovered: Maiden Tribute is due to be shown on Tuesday on Channel 4 at 9pm