The History of "Punch" Part 2

Reception of _Punch_--Early Struggles--Financial Help Invoked--The First Almanac--Its Enormous Success--Transfer of _Punch_ to Bradbury and Evans--Terms of Settlement--The New Firm--_Punch's_ Special Efforts--Succession of Covers--"Valentines," "Holidays,"

"Records of the Great Exhibition," and "At the Paris Exhibition."

The public reception of the first number of _Punch_ was varied in character. Mr. Watts, R.A., once told me that the paper was regarded with but little encouragement by the occupants of an omnibus in which he was riding, one gentleman, after looking gravely through its pages, tossing it aside with the remark, "One of those ephemeral things they bring out; won't last a fortnight!" Dr. Thompson, Master of Trinity, informed Professor Herkomer that he, too, was riding in an omnibus on the famous 17th of July, when he bought a copy from a paper-boy, and began to look at it with curiosity. When he chuckled at the quaint wit of the thing, "Do you find it amusing, sir?" asked a lady, who was observing him narrowly. "Oh, yes." "I'm so glad," she replied; "my husband has been appointed editor; he gets twenty pounds a week!" One may well wonder who was this sanguine and trustful lady. Mr. Frith describes how, having overheard Joe Allen tell a friend, in the gallery of the Society of British Artists, to "look out for our first number; we shall take the town by storm!" he duly looked out, but was disappointed at finding nothing in it by Leech; and how when he went to a shop for the second number, to see if his idol had drawn anything for it, the newsman replied, "'What paper, sir? Oh, _Punch_! Yes, I took a few of the first number; but it's no go. You see, they billed it about a good deal' (how well I recollect that expression!), 'so I wanted to see what it was like. It won't do; it's no go.'"

The reception by the press was more encouraging--that is to say, by the provincial press, for the London papers took mighty little notice of the newcomer. The "Morning Advertiser," it is true, quaintly declared in praise of the "exquisite woodcuts, serious and comic," that they were "executed in the first style of art, at a price so low that we really blush to name it;" while the "Sunday Times" and a number of provincial papers of some slight account in their day professed astonishment at the absence of grossness, partisans.h.i.+p, profanity, indelicacy, and malice from its pages. "It is the first comic we ever saw," said the "Somerset County Gazette," "which was not vulgar. It will provoke many a hearty laugh, but never call a blush to the most delicate cheek." They vied with each other in their vocabulary of praise; and as to _Punch's_ quips and sallies, his puns, his propriety, his "pencillings," and his cuts--they simply defied description; you just cracked your sides with laughter at the jokes, and that was all about it.

Yet, notwithstanding all this praise, the paper did not prosper; but whether it was that the price did not suit the public, although the "Advertiser" really blushed to name it, or that _Punch_ had not yet educated his Party, cannot be decided. The support of the public did not lift it above a circulation of from five to six thousand, and on the appearance of the fifth number Jerrold muttered with a snort, "I wonder if there will ever be a tenth!" Everything that could be done to command attention, with the limited funds at disposal, was done. No sooner was Lord Melbourne's Administration defeated and discredited (for the Premier was angrily denounced for hanging on to office), than _Punch_ displayed a huge placard across the front of his offices inscribed, "Why is _Punch_ like the late Government? Because it is JUST OUT!!" And no device of the sort, or other artifice that could be suggested to the resourceful minds in _Punch's_ cabinet, was left untried. Things were against _Punch_. It was not only that the public was neglectful, unappreciative. There was prejudice to live down; there were stamp duty, advertis.e.m.e.nt duty, and paper duty to stand up to; and there were no Smiths or Willings, or other great distributing agencies, to a.s.sist.

While Bryant was playing his uphill game, _Punch_, written by educated men, was doing his best not only to attract politicians and lovers of humour and satire, but to enlist also the support of scholars, to whom at that time no comic paper had avowedly appealed; and it is doubtless due to the a.s.sumption that his readers, like his writers, were gentlemen of education, that he quickly gained the reputation of being ent.i.tled to a place in the library and drawing-room, diffusing, so to speak, an odour of culture even in those early days of his first democratic fervour. We had a German "Punchlied," Greek Anakreontics, and plenty of Latin--not merely Leigh's mock-cla.s.sic verses, but efforts of a higher humour and a purer kind, such, among many more, as the "Petronius," and the clever interlinear burlesque translations of Horace which came from the pen of H. A. Kennedy. Then "Answers to Correspondents" were maintained for a while inside the wrapper, which were witty enough to justify their existence. But it was felt that something more was wanted to make the paper "move;" and the first "Almanac" was decided upon.

The circulation meanwhile had not risen above six thousand, and ten thousand were required to make the paper pay. Stationer and contributors had all been paid, and "stock" was now valued at 250. That there was a constant demand for these back numbers (on September 27th, 1841, for example, 1 3s. 4-1/2d.-worth were sold "over the counter"), was held to prove that the work was worth pus.h.i.+ng; but it seemed that for want of capital it would go the way of many another promising concern. The difficulties into which _Punch_ had fallen soon got noised abroad, and offers of a.s.sistance, not by any means disinterested, were not wanting to remind the stragglers of their position. Helping hands were certainly put out, but only that money might be dropped in. Then Last declined to go on. He had neither the patience nor the speculative courage of the Northumbrian engraver, and money had, not without great difficulty and delay, been found to pay him for his share--which had hitherto been a share only of loss. The firm of Bradbury and Evans had been looked to as a _deus ex machina_ to take over the printing, and lift _Punch_ out of the quagmire by acquiring Last's share and interest for 150. The offer was entertained, and an agreement drafted on September 25th, when, on the very same day, Bradbury and Evans wrote to withdraw, on the ground that they found the proposed acquisition "would involve them in the probable loss of one of their _most valuable_ connections." Landells, who always regarded this action--without any definite grounds that I can discover--as a diplomatic move to involve him and his friends still more, so that more advantageous salvage terms might be made, hurriedly cast about for other succour, and alighted on one William Wood, printer, who lent money, but whose agreement as a whole was not executed, as it was considered "either usurious or exorbitant" by their solicitors, who characteristically concluded their bill thus:--"Afterwards attending at the office in Wellington Street to see as to making the tender, and to advise you on the sufficiency thereof, but you were not there; afterwards attending at Mr. H. Mayhew's lodging, but he was out; afterwards attending at Mr. Lemon's, and he was out; and we were given to understand you had all gone to Gravesend"--showing the one touch of nature which made all _Punch_-men kin.

In due course Landells acquired Last's share, and the printing was executed successively by Mr. Mitch.e.l.l and by Mills, Jowett, and Mills, until it slid by a sort of natural gravitation into the hands of Bradbury and Evans. Landells had endeavoured to interest his friends in the paper, but soon discovered the fatal truth that one's closest friends are never so close as when it is a question of money.

Then came the Almanac, upon which were based many hopes that were destined to be more than realised. It has. .h.i.therto been considered as the work of Dr. Maginn, at that time, as at many others, an unwilling sojourner in a debtor's prison. But H. P. Grattan has since claimed the distinction of being, like the doctor, an inmate of the retreat known as Her Majesty's Fleet, where he was visited by Henry Mayhew. Mayhew, he said, lived surrept.i.tiously with him for a week, and during that time, without any a.s.sistance from Dr. Maginn, they brought the whole work to a brilliant termination. Thirty-five jokes a day to each man's credit for seven consecutive days in the melancholy privacy of a prison cell is certainly a very remarkable feat--hardly less so than the alleged fact that Mayhew, who proposed the Almanac, as he proposed so many other good things for _Punch_, should have gone to the incarcerated Grattan for sole a.s.sistance, when he and his co-editors had so many capable colleagues at large. The claim does not deserve full credence, especially in face of Landells' declaration that "everyone engaged on it worked so admirably together, and it was done so well, that the town was taken by surprise, and the circulation went up in that one week from 6,000 to 90,000--an increase, I believe, unprecedented in the annals of publis.h.i.+ng." The Almanac became at once the talk of the day; everybody had read it, and a contemporary critic declared that its cuts "would elicit laughter from toothache, and render gout oblivious of his toe."

Now, although Bradbury and Evans had hesitated to become proprietors, they had had no objection to act as printers and publishers, and when the editors approached them they lent a ready ear. "It was Uncle Mark,"

said "Pater" Evans at the "Gentleman's Magazine" dinner in 1868, "who was the chief conspirator when they brought _Punch_ to Whitefriars; it was his eloquence alone that induced us to buy _Punch_. Jerrold did not say much, but he supported his friend, you may be sure. They talked us over very easily." They bought the editors' share for 200, which they advanced on the security of the whole. Into the circ.u.mstances of the subsequent squabbles between Landells and the firm it is not needful to enter. He bitterly complained that he could obtain neither statements of accounts nor satisfactory arrangement, while the firm withheld their favourable consideration of the agreements his solicitors sent them to sign. The negotiations proceeded wearily from April, 1842, to December 24th, with rising wrath on the part of the good-hearted, impatient Northumbrian, who could neither understand nor brook the repeated delays, and fairly boiled over with indignation, suspicion, and wrath.

In despair, so Landells recorded, that his lawyers could get no satisfaction, and yet "not willing to put the whole thing into Chancery," he blurted out that he should buy back Bradbury and Evans'

share or they acquire his. As cool business men they promptly asked his price. He named 450, ultimately reducing it to 400, and further to 350, on the understanding, he says, that he should continue to act as engraver; and great were his anger and humiliation when he found after the second week of the new _regime_ that the engraving was taken from him. But it is only fair to say that in his lawyer's instructions there is evidence that Bradbury and Evans persistently declined to give up their freedom in the matter of the engraving. The transfer then took place.[5] On December 23rd, 1842, the firm was already speaking with some authority; the voice was the voice of the printers, but the tone was the tone of proprietors. And that was the pa.s.sing of _Punch_.

Earlier in the year Landells had made an effort to save the paper by persuading those who worked for it to take shares. With a few he was successful; others were less speculative, so the writer was informed by the late H. G. Hine. "Landells," he said, "asked me to take a share in the paper, but, not being a business man, I declined. When the paper changed hands, Bradbury and Evans bought it for so small an increase on the actual losses and debts, that each man, when the profits were divided, received two-and-sixpence each." Not long after Landells ceased his connection with _Punch_, Douglas Jerrold met Vizetelly, and acquainted him with the turn of the tide. "_Punch_ is getting on all right now," he said; and added, in his saturnine way, "It began to do so immediately we threw that engraving Jonah overboard!" Yet Jerrold was glad enough to take advantage of the engraving Jonah's influence the following year, when Landells, with Herbert Ingram, N. Cooke, T.

Roberts, W. Little, and R. Palmer started the "Illuminated Magazine,"

and installed him as editor at a handsome salary.

The following page from Landells' rather rough-and-ready accounts will give some idea of how financial matters stood between the parties at the time of the transfer:--

B. & E. CASH RECD. | B. & E. CASH PAID.

| s. d. | s. d.

| Accts. 1,278 6 9 |Cash paid to Artists, Editors, Artists, paid 507 4 6 | Editors, etc. 507 4 6 ----------- |B. & E. for printing 605 10 6 771 2 3 | B. & E. acct. 605 10 6 | ----------- | Balance in hand 165 11 9 | ------------------------------------+---------------------------------- E. LANDELLS. | LEMON, COYNE, AND MAYHEW.

| s. d. | s. d.

| To Engravings 315 4 0 |To Editing 400 0 0 Cash 25 0 0 |1/2 debt 100 0 0 Paid contributions at | --------- 6. 0. 0 per week 120 0 0 | 300 0 0 --------- | 460 4 0 | 400 0 0 1/2 debt 100 0 0 | 100 0 0 --------- | --------- 360 4 0 | 300 0 0 --------- | 120 0 0 Cash received 57 0 0 | --------- --------- | 180 0 0 303 4 0 | 25 0 0 | --------- | 155 0 0

[_Note._--The schedule of doc.u.ments and legal papers connected with the matters here dealt with, now in possession of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and Co., Ltd. (which confirm the particulars derived from Landells' papers) are:--

1. The original Agreement between the original founders of _Punch_ already enumerated. This is dated July 14th, 1841--only three days before the appearance of the paper. It is printed at length as Appendix 1 to this volume.

2. Agreement between Bradbury and Evans and "Punchites," whereby in consideration of a loan of 150 the printing of the paper is a.s.sured to the firm. This is dated Oct., 1841, the signatories being E. Landells, Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, and Stirling Coyne, with W. H. Wills and G. Windsor as witnesses.

3. The a.s.signment to Landells of _Punch_ and the stock-in-trade by Lemon, Mayhew, and Stirling Coyne. Dated December 6th, 1841.

4. a.s.signment to Bradbury and Evans by Landells of his two-thirds share of _Punch_. Dated, July 25th, 1842.

5. a.s.signment of his remaining one-third to Bradbury and Evans by Landells, in consideration of 100 cash and their acceptance for 250 due Jan. 31st, 1843, their mortgage on this share to be cancelled. This deed is dated Dec. 29th, 1842, and is in the terms of Landells' letter of agreement of the previous 24th.]

The new proprietors, when they acquired their interest in _Punch_, were not then distinguished publishers such as they soon became; they were essentially printers, and had few connections to a.s.sist them in making it into a paying property. They had, however, W. S. Orr & Co. (the London agents of Chambers, of Edinburgh), who had fallen into financial difficulties, and looked to Bradbury and Evans to help them out; and through their organisation _Punch_ was taken up by the trade "on sale or return." To work up the sale of a threepenny publication was at that time a formidable task; but Orr certainly accomplished it, and for a time _Punch_ undoubtedly owed more to his efforts than to Jerrold's pen or Leech's pencil. The head of the firm, in both senses, was William Bradbury, the keenest man of business that ever trod the flags of Fleet Street, and the founder of a dynastic line nearly as long and eminent as that of John Murray himself. His portrait may be seen in _Punch_ more than once--for example, in Tenniel's drawing of the Staff at play at the beginning of Vol. XXVII, 1854, where his tall, imposing figure contrasts with that of his partner, Frederick Mullett ("Pater") Evans, who appears with s.h.i.+ning spectacles, beaming countenance, and convex waistcoat.

Jolly old "Pater," who died in 1870, was the model of Leech's _pater-familias_; and it is remembered to his credit that he never resented the liberty taken with him by Thackeray in "The Kickleburys on the Rhine." It has always been the graceful and feeling practice of _Punch_, ever since the death of Dr. Maginn, to whom a kindly obituary was devoted in 1842, to do honour in his pages to each of his lieutenants as they drop out of the ranks, recognising misfortune and death--both "devil's inventions," as Ruskin calls them--as toll-gates on the path of life, with sorrow as the tax; so that these more solemn articles and mortuary elegies seem to mark the way, like milestones set by loving hands. To Evans one of these was raised, and we read in it that "they who inscribe these lines to his memory will never lament a more kind, more genial, or more loyal friend."

[Ill.u.s.tration: F. M. EVANS. WILLIAM H. BRADBURY.

WILLIAM BRADBURY. F. M. ("PATER") EVANS.

(_From Photographs by A. Ba.s.sano Limited._)]

The next head of the firm was William Hardwick Bradbury, who had been at school with Mr. Justice Romer, the husband of Mark Lemon's daughter; and the house then became Bradbury, Evans & Co. He married the daughter of Mr. Thomas Agnew; and when, in 1872, Mr. F. M. Evans (the son of "Pater") left the firm, after having attended the Dinner for five years as the son of his father, and sat for another seven years at the tail of the Table by right of proprietors.h.i.+p, the business was reinforced by the inclusion of the house of Agnew. It then became Bradbury, Agnew & Co., and it has been thought that Sir William Agnew's personality has tended to colour _Punch_ up to a certain point with just a shade of his own Liberal political opinions. Messrs. W. H. Bradbury, William Agnew, Thomas Agnew, and John Henry Agnew were then the members of the firm, which a few years since was converted into a limited company; and on the death of the first-named, Mr. W. Lawrence Bradbury took his father's place as managing head of the house, with Mr. Philip Agnew as colleague: young men, surely, to succeed to the direction of a house which had been the publisher of Thackeray and d.i.c.kens, founders of "The Field," "The Army and Navy Gazette," printers of the "Family Herald" and "London Journal," of the "Daily News," the "English Encyclopedia," and other huge undertakings. With the advent of the younger generation came some of those technical alterations and improvements which have brought the production of _Punch_ abreast of the times; but the older traditions, in particular that great inst.i.tution of the _Punch_ Dinner, have been reverently and lovingly retained in all their admirable features.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS AGNEW. JOHN HENRY AGNEW.

SIR WILLIAM AGNEW, BART. PHILIP L. AGNEW. W. LAWRENCE BRADBURY.

(_From Photographs by A. Ba.s.sano, Limited._)]

It is not surprising that after the striking success of the experiment the Almanac became a permanent annual inst.i.tution. Into so important a publication did it develop, commercially speaking, that a special "Almanac Dinner" has up to recent years always been considered necessary, at which its chief contents are arranged, just as at the ordinary weekly Dinner. Hine, Kenny Meadows, and others a.s.sisted in the production of the first two or three Almanacs; but after that, and for many years, practically the whole of the ill.u.s.trative work usually fell on the broad and entirely competent shoulders of John Leech, especially after Doyle's secession. From time to time experiments have been made in the direction of novelty. Thus in 1848, in consequence of the great popularity of the issue, a luxurious edition was prepared, at the price of five s.h.i.+llings for the coloured and half that sum for the uncoloured copies, wherein, it was claimed, "full effect is given to the artists'

designs." It was certainly an imposing affair, with meadows of margin, and printed on one side only of the thick paper; and it now commands a price in the bookshops of five or six times its original cost.

Humour for private as well as for public consumption has always been a rule in the _Punch_ circle; and in 1865, a year in which influenza colds were extremely prevalent, this pleasing faculty was given full scope.

Most of the Staff that Christmas were afflicted with severe colds; so with amiable consideration the copies of the Almanac provided for them and for some of the chief contributors were printed upon linen--lest their supply of handkerchiefs should run short. They were charming and cheerful in appearance, being handsomely bound and st.i.tched with red, and presented unusual advantages in the way of utility and entertainment. Of recent years the Almanacs have had admirably drawn wrappers, specially designed. In 1882 Mr. Burnand tested the powers of our humorous painters outside, in addition to _Punch's_ own Staff, including Mr. Stacy Marks, R.A., Mr. G. A. Storey, A.R.A., and Sir John Gilbert, R.A.; but the result was an argument in favour of Staff-work over outside contribution. Among other experiments, colour was tried with a view to rendering further homage to Sir John Tenniel's cartoon, by printing it on a tinted background, in the manner of Matt Morgan's famous designs in the "Tomahawk." But the idea, which originated with the late Mr. Bradbury, did not answer expectations, and the attempt was abandoned.

The success that immediately attended the Almanac naturally attracted the attention of the pirates, and hatched the brood of spurious and coa.r.s.e imitations given forth by such notorious printers and publishers as Goode, Lloyd, and Lyle. But _Punch_ had a short legal way with him that soon scared them off, and the merry Hunchback is now left supreme in his own sphere. He not only, as the "Times" said, "commences the winter season for us with the 'Almanac,' but he continues the tradition of Charles d.i.c.kens by retaining for Christmastide much of the fine hearty old flavour which the great novelist imparted to it--that jovial, tender, charitable, roast-goose spirit that exhales from it, the Spirits of Christmas Present and Christmas Past." "Christmas without the Christmas number of _Punch_," exclaimed the "Sat.u.r.day Review" not long ago, "would be a Christmas without plum-pudding, mince-pies, turkey, and children's parties--it would not be Christmas at all!"

Another result of the constant search for freshness was the changing of the design on the cover of each consecutive volume. Any change from that of Henning could only be a change for the better, so a second application was made to Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz") for his collaboration. Well satisfied by this time with the tone of the paper, he gladly responded. The result was a refined and artistic page, crowded with figures, rather graceful and quaint than funny; and although, to Leech's horror, a barrel-organ figured in it, it served its purpose admirably.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PUNCH'S_ SECOND WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY "PHIZ." JANUARY, 1842.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROPOSED WRAPPER FOR THIRD VOLUME. SKETCH BY H. G. HINE.

NOT ADOPTED.]

For the next volume a sketch was made by H. G. Hine, based on a slighter one by Landells. It was not used, however, as intended, but adapted as the index-heading; and William Harvey, the Shakespearian ill.u.s.trator, was requested to undertake a design to replace it. This, though yet more graceful than Browne's, was less suitable than ever. Babes like _amorini_ toying with Punch's cap and _baton_, bells and mask, were very pretty and charming, but a good deal too much in the style of Rubens or Stothard; and what was thought more unsuitable still was the price. Mr.

Birket Foster has borne witness to the consternation in the office when the charge of twelve guineas was sent in with the design--nearly half the total capital with which Landells a year before had begun the concern!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PUNCH'S_ THIRD WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY WILLIAM HARVEY.

JULY, 1842.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PUNCH'S_ FOURTH WRAPPER. DESIGNED BY SIR JOHN GILBERT.

JANUARY, 1843.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PUNCH'S_ FIFTH WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY KENNY MEADOWS. JULY, 1843.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PUNCH'S_ SIXTH WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY RICHARD DOYLE. FIRST DESIGN. JANUARY, 1844.]

Six months later Sir John Gilbert--then a youth doing great things for the "Ill.u.s.trated London News"--was commissioned to draw another front page. This was subsequently used until recent years as the pink cover of _Punch's_ monthly parts. A cover was produced by Kenny Meadows, and then for January, 1844, Richard Doyle, the latest recruit, whose merit had been quickly gauged, was employed to execute the new one. This wrapper was far more in accord with the true spirit of _Punch_. More sportive and rollicking, and with less attempt at grace, it threw over the style of the "Newcastle School"--of which Landells was a member--and gave the general idea of the latest of all covers. This was not executed until January, 1849, when several changes of detail were made, including the subst.i.tution of the smug lion's head for that of Judy in the canvas--the whole so successful that it may safely be predicted that it will never be superseded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PUNCH'S_ SIXTH AND LAST WRAPPER, DESIGNED BY RICHARD DOYLE. SECOND DESIGN. JANUARY, 1849.]

Such are the covers--comprising what Mr. W. Bradbury used to call "our wardrobe of old coats"--which, though interesting enough in themselves, certainly included nothing to equal the last design, by which Doyle's name is best known throughout the artistic world.

Guided by the success of the first Almanac, the conductors decided to work the same oracle by publis.h.i.+ng "extra numbers" at every promising opportunity. "Mr. Mayhew, Mr. Jerrold, and I," says Landells, "happened to spend a few days in the summer at Herne Bay, and there '_Punch's_ Visit to the Watering Places' was projected. These articles gave _Punch_ another great lift. Messrs. Mayhew, Mark Lemon, Douglas Jerrold, and I, did Herne Bay, Margate, Broadstairs, and Ramsgate, and I never enjoyed myself more than on this, to me, memorable occasion. Albert Smith did Brighton. _Punch_ thenceforth became an established favourite with the public, and the weekly circulation averaged over 30,000."