H. PETHERICK
by
Robert J. Kirkpatrick
H. Petherick was a prolific illustrator of children’s books between around 1860 and 1900, who then had a second career as an expert on violins – their history, makers, and their restoration and repair.
He was born on 4 December 1838 at 18 Frederick Street, St. Pancras, London (and not in 1839 in Croydon, Surrey, as most other sources suggest), and named Horace William Petherick. He was the third of eight children (two of whom died in early childhood) born to William Richard Petherick (born in Helston, Cornwall, in 1813, died in Brighton in 1899), a tailor, and his wife Phoebe Mary Ann, née Cooper (born in Newington, Surrey, in 1810, died in Brighton in 1898), who had married in St. Pancras on 12 April 1835.
At the time of the 1841 census the family was living at 18 Seymour Place. St. Marylebone. Ten years later, they were recorded at 80 Park Street, St. Pancras.
It is not known where Horace was educated or where he received his artistic training, but by the time of the 1861 census he had left home and was working as an artist, lodging at 1 Houston Terrace, Kensington, with 68 year-old Maria Blee and her family. (His family, meanwhile, were living at 2 Rosa Villas, Richmond Road, Fulham). Horace subsequently moved to Fulham (probably back with his parents) where, in All Saints Church on 25 June 1864, he married Clementina Augusta Bewley Bonney, born in London in around 1837 and the daughter of William Wolfe Bonney, a wine merchant who later became a manufacturing chemist.
Horace and Clementina immediately moved to Maple Lodge, 25 Havelock Road, Addiscombe, Surry, where they remained for the rest of their lives, and where they went on to have seven children: Horace Claude (1867-1869), Adeline Maude (1869-1872), Rosa Clementina (1872-1931), Ada Flora (1874-1924), Leila Helena (1876-1951), Eveline May (1880-1936), and Dora Valentine (1881-1946).
Horace’s earliest-known work as an illustrator appeared in 1858, in a historical novel about the French Revolution. Three years later, he illustrated a translation of a French novel, and he went on to illustrate a handful of children’s stories for Frederick Warne & Co, until his career took off in the early 1870s. Between 1870 and 1900 he illustrated well over 100 books – these were all children’s books, ranging from picture books, fairy stories and legends for younger children to historical, adventure, family and school stories for older children. Among the authors whose books he illustrated were Emily Sarah Holt, George E. Sargent, L.T. Meade, Stella Austin, Grace Stebbing, Georgiana Marion Craik, M.L. Ridley, Evelyn Everett Green, Phoebe Allen and Emma Leslie. Most notably, perhaps, he illustrated two of G.A. Henty’s boys’ novels,
The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough’s Wars and
Winning His Spurs: A Tale of the Crusades, both published by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington in 1881 and 1882 respectively (after having been serialized with Petherick’s illustrations in
The Union Jack). Three other notable boys’ adventure stories which contained Petherick illustrations were George Manville Fenn’s
Middy and Ensign, or The Jungle Station: A Tale of the Malay Peninsula, published by Griffith & Farran in 1882; and W.H.G;. Kingston’s
The Heroic Wife, or The Wanderers on the Amazon and
The Child of the Wreck, or The Loss of the “Royal George” published by Griffith & Farran in 1874 and 1876.
Another notable collaboration was with Laura Valentine, who wrote under the pseudonym “Aunt Louisa.” One of their best-known books was
London Characters, published in the series “Aunt Louisa’s Toy Books” by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1875 – this had 12 coloured prints of London workers such as a milkman, baker, waterman, chimney sweep, lamplighter and fireman. He also illustrated a few others, which were later re-issued in a complete volume.
Amongst the other publishers he worked for were Frederick Warne & Co., John F. Shaw & Co., J. Masters & Co., Marcus Ward & Co., Blackie & Son, John Hogg, the Religious Tract Society and the Sunday School Union.
He also contributed to a small number of periodicals, most notably
The Illustrated London News between 1870 and 1890. His work also appeared in
Life,
The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News,
The Children’s Treasury and
The Penny Illustrated Paper, and in the children’s periodicals
The Union Jack,
The Boy’s Own Paper,
Little Folks and
Aunt Judy’s Christmas Volume.
He was one of the first illustrators to extol the virtues of graphotyping, as being far superior to wood engraving, in the late 1860s. In 1875, he was giving evening classes in life drawing at his home in Addiscombe.
He also exhibited his paintings, including at the Royal Academy (1877, 1891, 1901 and 1913) and with the Royal Society of British Artists.
He sometimes signed his work “H P” or “H W P”, as well as with his full name.
During the 1890s his output diminished substantially, with his last-known illustrations appearing in 1900. By then, he had established himself as an expert on violins. He had had a lifelong interest in the subject, which culminated in him in describing himself in the 1901 census as an “expert on musical instruments.” He was a regular contributor to
The Strad, a magazine devoted to string instruments launched in 1890, and in 1900 he published a biography of the violin maker Antonio Stradivari, followed by a book on the repair and restoration of violins in 1903, and a biography of another violin maker, Joseph Guarnerius, in 1906. He was also regularly asked to certify and value violins, and he became President of the Cremona Society (named after the city in Italy where Stradivari lived and worked). Earlier, he had been a member of the Savage Club, and had even joined the Savage Club Freemasons Lodge in 1889, only to be excluded in 1897 after failing to pay his membership fee.
His wife died on 23 March 1909. Horace himself died at his home in Addiscombe on 8 March 1919, and was buried four days later in the family plot in the churchyard of St. John’s Church, Shirley, Surrey. He left an estate valued at £1,940 (around £85,000 in today’s terms), with probate granted to his daughter Rosa.
Petherick’s five daughters, all but one of whom remained unmarried, became musicians, with Rosa Clementina (known as Rosa C. Petherick) also becoming an illustrator of children’s books, specializing in picture books and other books for very young children. She also illustrated some books for older children, including a couple of boys’ stories by Harold Avery, several girls’ school stories (including Elsie Jeanette Oxenham’s
The Abbey Girls in Town and Josephine Elder’s
That Scholarship Girl), and an edition of Charles Dickens’s
The Old Curiosity Shop, published by Andrew Melrose in 1906. She was a member of the Croydon Art Society and she became Secretary of the Croydon Sketch Club, and was briefly a member of the Streatham Symphony Orchestra. She died suddenly in Brighton in 1931.
Ada Flora studied at the London Academy of Music, playing the violin and piano, and for a while was a deputy organist at Addiscombe Parish Church, and a member of the Croydon Orchestral Society. She also composed a number of musical works and painted. She died of diphtheria at the Borough Isolation Hospital in Waddon Surrey, in March 1924.
Leila Helena (who also studied at the London Academy, specializing in the viola) established her own business teaching singing, as well as performing regularly. She died in Croydon in 1951. Eveline May trained at the Royal Academy of Music, and became both a musician and a conductor, as well as a music teacher. During the First World War she formed the Island Orchestra on the Isle of Wight. She died in Brighton in 1936. Dora Valentine also trained at the London Academy, and played with various orchestras including the Redhill Society of Instrumentalists and the Streatham Symphony Orchestra. She also taught music. She married Albert H. Gilson, a violin and cello repairer, in 1922, and died in Torbay in March 1946.
The four sisters also performed as together as the Petherick Quartet from around 1905 onwards, and they were all also members of the Addiscombe String Orchestra, and played with the local all-female Bach Choir.
PUBLICATIONS
Written by H. Petherick
Antonia Stradivari, “The Strad” Office, 1900
The Repairing and Restoration of Violins, “The Strad” Office, 1903
Joseph Guarnerius: His Work and His Master, “The Strad” Office, 1906
Illustrated by H. Petherick
The Young Middy, or The Perilous Adventures of a Boy-Officer Among the Royalists and Republicans of the First French Revolution by F.C. Armstrong, Marlborough & Co., 1858
The Four Homes, adapted from the French of Madame de Gasparin by Mrs Gother Mann, Ward, Lock & Tyler, 1861
The Robin’s Christmas Eve by C.E. Bowen, Frederick Warne & Co., 1865
Hector the Dog by L. Valentine, Frederick Warne & Co., 1868
Tom Thumb, George Routledge & Sons, 1870(?)
The King, Queen and Knave of Hearts, Frederick Warne, 1871(?)
Blue-Beard, F. Warne & Co., 1871(?)
Lili, The Doctor’s Daughter, or The Bunch of Violets, and What Became of Them by Charles Bruce, Jarrold & Sons, 1871
Hanbury Mills: A Study of Contrasts by Christabel R. Coleridge, Frederick Warne & Co., 1872
Home for the Holidays by L. Jewry, Frederick Warne & Co., 1872
The Well in the Desert: An Old Legend of the House of Arundel by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1872
Father Time’s Story Book: For the Little Ones by Kathleen Knox, Griffith & Farran, 1873
The Heroic Wife, or The Wanderers on the Amazon by W.H.G. Kingston, Griffith & Farran, 1874
Nettie’s Mission by Julia A. Matthews, James Nisbet & Co., 1874
The Birthday Present: Tales, Amusing and Instructive, Frederick Warne & Co., 1874(?)
Rover’s Dinner Party by L. Valentine, Frederick Warne & Co., 1875
London Characters by L. Valentine, Frederick Warne & Co., 1875
Little Prescription and Other Tales by Mrs Robert O’Reilly, George Bell & Sons, 1875 (with other artists)
The Child of the Wreck, or The Loss of the “Royal George” by W.H.G. Kingston, Griffith & Farran, 1876
Our Boys and Girls by L. Valentine, Frederick Warne & Co., 1876
The Little Sea-Bird by George E. Sargent, Religious Tract Society, 1876 (re-issue)
David’s Little Lad by L.T. Meade, John F. Shaw & Co., 1877
The Earl-Printer: A Tale of the Time of Caxton by Catherine Mary MacSorley, John F. Shaw & Co., 1877
Harold, or Following the Footprints by A.S.O.C., John F. Shaw & Co., 1877
Lotty’s Visit to Grandma by “Brenda”, John F. Shaw & Co., 1877
The House in the Glen and the Boys Who Built It by anon, John F. Shaw & Co., 1877
For the Master’s Sake: A Story of the Days of Queen Mary by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1877
Tales and Legends of Saxony and Lusatia by William Bury Westall, Griffith & Farran, 1877
The Home of Fiesole, with a Sketch of the Life and Times of Savonarala by anon., John F. Shaw & Co., 1877
White Lilies and Other Tales by L.T. Meade, John F. Shaw, 1878
The Gabled Farm, or Young Workers for the King by Catharine Shaw, John F. Shaw & Co., 1878
Uncle Philip: A Tale for Boys and Girls by Stella Auston, J. Masters & Co., 1878
Outcast Robin, or Your Brother and Mine by L.T. Meade, John F. Shaw & Co., 1878
Winifred, or An English Maiden in the Seventeenth Century by Lucy Ellen Guernsy, John F. Shaw & Co., 1878
Margery’s Son, or “Until He Find It”: A Fifteeneth Century Tale of the Court of Scotland by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1878
Willow Bank, or Only a Week by C.H., John F. Shaw & Co., 1879
The Two Castaways, or Adventures in Patagonia by Lady Florence Dixie, John F. Shaw & Co., 1879
Brave Geordie: The Story of an English Boy by Grace Stebbing, John F. Shaw & Co., 1879
Dot and Her Treasures by L.T. Meade, John F. Shaw & Co., 1879
Friends Only by Emily Marion Harris, Marcus Ward & Co., 1879
The Maiden’s Lodge, or None of Self and All of Thee: A Tale of the Reign of Quen Anne by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1880
The Browning Boys by “Pansy,” Sunday School Union, 1880
Prairie Days, or Our Home in the Far West by Mary B. Sleight, John F. Shaw & Co., 1880
Hilary’s Love Story by Georgiana Marion Craik, Marcus Ward & Co., 1880
Jack: A Chapter in a Boy’s Life by Yotty Osborn, John F. Shaw & Co., 1880
Childhood’s Playtime, Frederick Warne & Co., 1880
Lady Rosamond’s Book, or Dawnings of Light by Lucy Ellen Guernsey, John F. Shaw & Co., 1880
Nobody’s Lad by Leslie Keith, John F. Shaw & Co., 1880
My Dog Tray, Frederick Warne & Co., 1880
Dick Whittington, Frederick Warne & Co., 1880
Lady Sibyl’s Choice: A Tale of the Crusades by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1880
Our Captain: The Heroes of Barton School by M.L. Ridley, John F. Shaw & Co., 1881
The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough’s Wars by G.A. Henty, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1881
Uncle Fred’s Shilling: Its Travels and Adventures by Emily Brodie, John F. Shaw & Co., 1881
Silent Highways: A Story of Barge Life by Frances Palmer, John F. Shaw & Co., 1881
Hilda, or Seeketh Not Her Own by Catharine Shaw, John F. Shaw & Co, 1881
Winning His Spurs: A Tale of the Crusades by G.A. Henty, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1882 (published in the USA as Fighting the Saracens, or The Boy Knight)
Hubert D’Arcy, the Young Crusader by N. Payne Gallwey, John F. Shaw & Co., 1882
Red Cloud, the Solitary Sioux: A Story of the Great Prairie by William Francis Butler, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882
Middy and Ensign, or The Jungle Station: A Tale of the Malay Peninsula by George Manville Fenn, Griffith, Farran & Co., 1882
Wings: A Tale by Stella Austin, J. Masters & Co., 1882
Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1882
Gold and Glory, or Wild Ways of Other Days: A Tale of Early American Discovery by Grace Stebbing, John F. Shaw & Co., 1882
Among the Gibjigs: A Child’s Romance by Sydney Hodges, Remington & Co., 1882
The Nursery Alphabet, Frederick Warne & Co., 1882
The Three Chums: A Story of School Life by M.L. Ridley, John F. Shaw, 1882 (with other artists)
Norway in June by Olivia M. Stone, Marcus Ward & Co., 1882 (with other artists)
Among the Woblins: A Child’s Romance by Sydney Hodges, Remington & Co., 1883
Walter Alison: His Friends and Foes by M.L. Ridley, John F. Shaw & Co., 1883 (with other artists)”
His Mother’s Book by Evelyn Everett Green, John F. Shaw & Co., 1883
Not for Him: The Story of a Forgotten Hero by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1883
Winning an Empire, or The Story of Clive by Grace Stebbing, John F. Shaw & Co., 1883
Alick’s Hero by Catharine Shaw, John F. Shaw & Co., 1883
Wearyholme, or Seeding and Harvest: A Tale of the Restoration of Charles the Second by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1883
Water Gipsies, or The Adventures of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail by L.T. Meade, John F. Shaw & Co., 1883
The Three Little Doggies, Frederick Warne & Co., 1883
Phoebe’s Pool: A Story for Children by Katharine D. Cornish, J. Masters & Co., 1883
Kenneth’s Children: A Story for Boys and Girls by Stella Austin, J. Masters & Co., 1884
Sister Sue by Ismay Thorn, J. Masters & Co., 1884
Mother Bunch: A Story for Boys and Girls by Stella Austin, J. Masters & Co., 1885
Aunt Louisa’s Welcome Gift by L. Valentine, Frederick Warne & Co., 1885 (with other artists)
“Worth a Threepenny Bit,” or General Weissel’s Grandchildren, by “Yvonne”, John F. Shaw & Co., 1886
Silverdale Rectory, or The Golden Links by Grace Stebbing, John F. Shaw & Co., 1886
A Professional Secret, and Other Tales by William Wilthew Fenn, John Hogg, 1887
Aunt Louisa’s Home Companion by L. Valentine, Frederick Warne & Co., 1887 (with other artists)
Stories Told By My Cat Timothy by Felicia Melancthon, Blackie & Son, 1888
Dorothy’s Clock by Aimée de Venoix Dawson, Blackie & Son, 1888
Brave Little Women: Tales of the Heroism of Girls, Founded on Fact by Marie Trevelyan, John Hogg, 1888
Stories About My Dolls by Felicia Melancthon, Blackie & Son, 1888
Linda and the Boys by Cecilia Selby Lowndes, Blackie & Son, 1888
The Wondrous Tale of Cocky, Clucky and Cackle by Charles William Heckethorn, John Hogg, 1888
A Pair of Clogs, and Other Stories for Children by Amy Walton, Blackie & Son, 1888
A Strange Exhibition, and Other Tales for the Young by E.C. Rickards, John Hogg, 1888
Swiss Stories: For Children and Those Who Love Children by Lucy Wheelock, Blackie & Son, 1889
Joan’s Adventures at the North Pole and Elsewhere by Alice Corkran, Blackie & Son, 1889
Nöel and Geoff, or Three Christmas Days: a Story for Children by Frances Armstrong, John Hogg, 1889
Under the Walnut-Tree: Stories Told by the Birds by Frances Armstrong, John Hogg, 1890 (with other artists)
The Truth About the Dead Heart, With Reminiscences of the Author and the Actors by John Coleman, Henry J. Drane, 1890
Nobody’s Neighbour, or Jack’s Experiment by Catharine Shaw, John F. Shaw & Co., 1891
In the Enemy’s Country, or The Raven of Steinbruck: A Story of 1813 by Anna Harriet Drury, Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, 1891
The Boys of Prior’s Dean by Phoebe Allen, John Hogg, 1891
Merchant and Mountebank by “Brenda,” John F. Shaw & Co., 1891
Little Pets, John F. Shaw & Co., 1891(?)
Popular Stories by various authors, John F. Shaw & Co., 1894
Vulcan’s Revenge by anon., Sunday School Union, 1894
Up in the Old Pear Tree: A Holiday Story by S.P. Armstrong, John Hogg, 1895
The Stolen Roses by Emma Leslie, Sunday School Union, 1896
Stories Told to a Child by Jean Ingelow, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1896 (re-issue)
For Old Sake’s Sake by Stella Austin, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1898 (re-issue)
Schooldays at Highfield House by A.N. Malan, Religious Tract Society, 1898 (with other artists)
Mother Bunch: A Story for Boys and Girls by Stella Austin, Charles Taylor, 1899
The Slave Girl of Pompeii, or By a Way They Knew Not: A Tale of the First Century by Emily Sarah Holt, John F. Shaw & Co., 1899 (re-issue)
The Princess and the Goblin by George Macdonald, Blackie & Son, 1900 (with Arthur Hughes) (re-issue)
In the meantime he was also exhibiting regularly. His work appeared in the Royal Academy every year between 1892 and 1929, although, despite his technical abilities and his popularity as a painter, he was never made an associate of the Royal Academy, let alone a member. In 1898, he won a gold medal at the International Art Exhibition in Vienna, and he also exhibited with the British Institution, the Royal Institute of Portrait Painters, the Royal Society of British Artists, The Royal Institute of Painters in Oils, and in public and commercial galleries throughout the UK. 
His work continued to occasionally appear in periodicals – articles about him and examples of his work appeared in The Studio in 1901 and The Windsor Magazine in 1907, and his work also featured in The Strand Magazine, The Sphere and The Sketch.
