B. C. Forbes

Bertie Charles Forbes, better known as B. C. Forbes, was a Scottish-American financial journalist and author whose name became attached to one of the best-known business magazines in the United States. He was born on May 14, 1880, in New Deer, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of Agnes Moir Forbes and Robert Forbes, a storekeeper and tailor at Whitehill. One of ten children, Forbes grew up far from the New York financial world he would later cover. He attended University College, Dundee, then part of the University of St Andrews.

Forbes began his newspaper career early. In 1897, he worked as a reporter and editorial writer with a local newspaper. In 1901, he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he worked on the Rand Daily Mail under its first editor, Edgar Wallace. Three years later, in 1904, he immigrated to New York City. There he was employed as a writer and financial editor at the Journal of Commerce, then joined the Hearst chain of newspapers as a syndicated columnist in 1911.

His work at Hearst brought him deeper into business and financial journalism. After two years as a syndicated columnist, Forbes became the business and financial editor at Hearst’s New York American, a position he held until 1916. In 1917, he founded Forbes magazine. He remained its editor-in-chief until his death in New York City in 1954, assisted in his later years by his two eldest sons, Bruce Charles Forbes and Malcolm Stevenson Forbes. In 1942, he also founded the Investors League.

Forbes was also a prolific author. His books included Finance, Business and the Business of Life in 1915, Men Who Are Making America in 1917, Keys to Success or Personal Efficiency in 1918, Forbes Epigrams in 1922, Men Who are Making the West in 1923, Automotive Giants of America in 1925, How to Get the Most Out of Business in 1927, and, in 1952, 101 Unusual Experiences and America’s Twelve Master Salesmen. The titles show the subjects that held his attention: business, work, personal efficiency, salesmanship, and the people shaping commerce.

What shaped Forbes’s point of view was a life spent inside newspapers and business reporting across three countries. He moved from a Scottish local paper to South Africa, then to New York, where he wrote about finance for a daily press audience before building his own magazine. His short saying, “Talking without thinking is like shooting without aiming,” fits the practical cast of his work. It is plain, direct, and meant to be used. Forbes died on May 6, 1954. In 1988, his body was returned to his native Scotland and buried in the New Deer Churchyard at Hill of Culsh in New Deer, Aberdeenshire.