Charles T. Podmore — Writer and Decorator

CHARLES T. PODMORE – WRITER AND DECORATOR

By Robert J. Kirkpatrick

The name of Charles T. Podmore (or C.T. Podmore) may be familiar to some students of 19^th century boy’s story papers – he contributed several stories to papers published by Samuel Dacre Clarke, alias Guy Rayner). He also wrote at least four novels, three stage plays, and was a local journalist for several years. Yet he spent his entire life living in Manchester and working full-time as a painter and decorator.

He was born on 3 April 1870 and baptised, as Thomas Podmore, at St. Jude’s, Ancoates, Manchester, on 26 February 1871. His father, Joseph Podmore (1818-1894) was a paper hanger and decorator, who had married Eliza Pickford (1834-1890) in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1858. Charles was the last of five children.

In the 1871 census the Podmore family was recorded at 11 Grosvenor Street, Chorlton on Medlock, Manchester; ten years later, they were living at 26 Legh Grove, Ardwick, Manchester; and in 1891 they were living as boarders at 32 Clifford Street, Chorlton on Medlock, when Joseph was described as a decorator and Thomas was described as a journalist and author.

His first venture as a writer appears to have been the short-lived The Young Author’s Journal, edited in partnership (as C.T. Podmore) with W.J.R. Carey, which was launched in Manchester on 1 May 1887 when Podmore was only 17. A year later he began contributing to some of the story papers published by Samuel Dacre Clarke (under his pen-name of Guy Rayner). Amongst his contributions to The Young Briton’s Journal were The Golden Dragoon; The Story of an Outcast; Dick Arden’s Quest; and Sylvester Strood. For The Boys’ Popular Weekly he wrote St. Bartholomew; and for Guy Rayner’s Boy’s Novelette he contributed A Man of Mystery – A Tale of the Pressgang Days; and Porlock the Jew, or The Spectre of the Abbey. His stories appeared under the names of Chas. T. Podmore and C.T. Podmore. Why he added “Charles” to his name is a mystery.

He appears to have published nothing in the years immediately following 1890. He went on to marry Blanche Sarah Roberts, born on 29 April 1874 in Tipton, Staffordshire, at St. Thomas’s Church, Ardwick, on 20 April 1898. Blanche was the daughter of Edward Roberts, a railway station master, and his wife Sarah. The marriage certificate gave Podmore’s name as Charles Thomas Podmore, and his profession that of a decorator, having belatedly, perhaps, decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. They went on to have three children: Cecilia Florence (1900-1987), Thomas Edward (1901-1972), and Charles Arthur (1904-1923).

His first novel, A Cynic’s Conscience, which portrayed the tragic consequences of an affair between a married man who has left his wife and another woman, was published by Edward Arnold in 1900, under the name of C.T. Podmore. This was followed by A Trombone and a Star, also issued by Edward Arnold, in 1905; and The Fault, published by John Long in 1909. A review of The Fault in the London-based newspaper The Era described Podmore as “a well-known Manchester journalist,” although what publications he wrote for has yet to be determined.

At the time of the 1901 census, he was living at 22 Albert Place, Ardwick. He was recorded as Charles T. Podmore, and was described as house decorator. By 1909, he had moved his family to 14 Meade Grove, Longsight, Manchester (where he was listed in a local trade directory as a decorator), and where he remained for the rest of his life.

In the 1921 census, he was described as a house decorator, with his sons Thomas Edward working as a house painter (continuing the family tradition), and Charles as an apprentice fitter.

As was the case before, there was a long gap between his last novel and his next work, which was a stage play, The Real Jeff Carbury, performed in Manchester in 1926, along with Labour on Top, also first performed in 1926. A year later came Put It There.

In 1932 he began writing for The Era, mainly contributing pieces on the theatre, music, and reviews. Another novel, Three Strange Men, was subsequently serialised, in 1938, in several local newspapers in the UK and in Australia. But he continued in his trade as a decorator, being recorded in the 1939 Register as a “grainer painting trade”. (A grainer was a painter who painted imitation of wood or marble grain).

Charles T. Podmore died on 27 March 1952, aged 82, at his home in Meade Grove, and was buried in the Southern Cemetery, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, on 1 April 1952. He did not leave a will. His wife died just five weeks later, on 8 June 1952, being buried four days later alongside her husband, leaving an estate valued at £223 1s. 5d. (just over £7,000 in today’s terms), with administration granted to her daughter Cecilia.

It is widely known that writing can be a very precarious occupation, and many authors supplement their income from writing by working in other jobs. This is as true today as it was in the 19^th and early 20^th century, although many writers were so wedded to their craft, and spent so long on it, even if for very little reward, that a second job was out of the question, and they were content to live in poverty. Podmore clearly had ambitions to be a writer even at the early age of 18 – witness his boys’ stories. Why he stopped writing them can only guessed at. Was he disappointed with the fees he received, or did he run out of ideas, or were his stories not well-received?

His novels received mixed reviews. The Leeds Mercury, while praising Podmore’s style, said “A Cynic’s Conscience is a disagreeable and entirely unattractive book,” and The St. James’s Gazette found it “loosely constructed and slovenly written; while The Athanaeum called it “a remarkable piece of writing,” with The Sphere declaring it “an excellent story, full of truth and insight, full of beautiful human touches…..thoroughly convincing.”

A Trombone and a Star, the story of a musician and his only daughter, was described by The Daily Telegraph as “a distinctly clever book without being remarkable,” and by The East Anglian Daily Times as “an extremely clever and unconventional novel, marred only be certain affectations of style which prevent entire enjoyment.” And The Fault, a novel about the romantic entanglements of two young men, was either “a forcible and dramatic one” (The Bookseller), or “rather pompous, and lacks verisimilitude in some of its details.”

Perhaps these assorted opinions convinced Podmore that he could never become a major novelist, and, after his brief foray into writing for the stage, he focused on local journalism, while relying largely on his income from his job as a painter and decorator.

Pennies, Profits and Poverty

Before we begin, I should note that some of the preliminary work Robert Kirkpatrick did for this volume appeared on Bear Alley and on John Adcock's Yesterday's Papers blog.

For an example of the depth of research Robert put into the dozen or so pieces published here at Bear Alley, I can't point to a finer example than his two-part piece on Edwin Harrison (you'll have to scroll down to reach part 1). I choose this particular piece because it's long and detailed... and even with the addition of footnotes, it takes up only just over eight pages of Robert's new book.

Even excluding the appendixes and index, Pennies, Profits and Poverty runs to 500 pages and covers 46 publishers and double that number of authors who contributed to the days of the penny dreadful. Each of the roughly 150 essays is thoroughly researched and entertainingly written.

Like a jigsaw, when combined they reveal the astonishing story of penny publishing which ran roughly from the 1830s to the 1890s, when the penny dreadful was replaced—in A A Milne's words—by the halfpenny dreadfuller. The stories of publishers and authors overlap and entwine to build a picture of the disparity in the good fortunes of some—mostly the publishers—and the poverty endured by others through failed ventures, changing tastes or the crisis brought on by cheap American imports which all but destroyed the market for original work in boys' papers.

This is a side of Fleet Street that has been sparsely covered and many of the names will be unfamiliar to the average reader. Take, as a for instance, William Strange, who published a successful satirical paper, Figaro in London, but who spent much of his career in and out of debter's prison and was even taken to court by Prince Albert—husband of Queen Victoria—to prevent the publication of a catalogue of etchings produced by the royal couple. Or the persistent George Maddick who was thoroughly unsuccessful in most ventures but also founded the paper that was to become The Sporting Life, although he had to be forced by the courts to change the original, forgetable title.

The book isn't all about the utterly obscure, as there are pieces on the success stories of publishers Edward Lloyd, John Dicks and Alfred Harmsworth, and biographies of authors whose names have managed to survive the cloaking mists of time: G. W. M. Reynold, Bracebridge Hemyng, E. Harcourt Burrage, W. H. G. Kingston, G. A. Henry and the famous printer and engraver, Henry Vizetelly.

There are some minor mysteries remaining. We don't, for instance, know when wild-eyed Charlie Stevens or John Cecil Stagg died (although my own suspicions about the former can be found here and I believe the latter died in 1903 or 1906, but it'll take some speculative purchasing of death certificates to prove it).

There are also going to be a few very minor errors in a book of this size, but they are minor, e.g.William Emmett had seven children, not five—Cecilia Margaret "Caila" Emmett, 1860-1864?) and Kathleen (c.1874- ) should be added. As I said, very minor and of little consequence to the main narrative.

The sheer weight of information in the book is astonishing. The stories told about each of the players in those days of Bohemian Fleet Street is at various times incredible, funny and tragic... but always interesting to even a novice collector of the penny dreadful era.

Pennies, Profits and Poverty. A biographical directory of wealth and want in Bohemian Fleet Street by Robert J. Kirkpatrick. Hanwell, published by the author, 2016. Available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Charles Fox

CHARLES FOX

by

Robert J. Kirkpatrick

Charles Fox was closely associated with the Emmett brothers, publishers of penny dreadfuls and boys’ story papers between 1867 and 1885 and who were amongst Edwin J. Brett’s fiercest rivals.  He was widely known as the person who took over control of the Emmetts’ publishing firm of Hogarth House in the mid-1870s, and he also launched several boys’ papers under his own steam.  But he has always been something of an enigmatic figure, and previous pictures of his life have been rather sketchy.  Some new facts have now emerged and this has enabled a fuller account to be put together.

Charles Fox was born on 7 June 1850, and baptised as Charles Nash Fox at St. Matthew’s Church, Bethnal Green, on 26 September 1852.  His father was George Fox, born in Bethnal Green in 1816 and a butcher by trade;  his mother was Ann Lyon, born in Bethnal Green in 1817.  They had married in the parish church at Bethnal Green on 19 February 1840, when they were already living together at 24 Carter Street.  They had three daughters before the birth of Charles:  Elizabeth (1840-1851), Ann Susan (1845-1935), and Emma (1847-1906).

George died on 3 January 1851, and his wife continued running the family butcher’s business, which by then was at 32 High Street, Mile End Old Town.  She married her second husband, Henry Nash (born 1825 in Bermondsey) who was also a butcher, in 1852.  They had a second son, Harry Henry Charles, on 30 June 1852  –  he was baptised at St. Matthew’s, Bethnal Green, on the same day as his step-brother Charles.

At the time of the 1861 census the family was living and working at 35 High Street, Mile End New Town.  Ten years later, Charles Fox had left home and was recorded living at 11 Newcastle Place, Tower Hamlets, described as a publisher’s assistant, and apparently married to Phebe Fox (born in Hoxton in around 1849  –  the census return spelling may be incorrect).  There is a record of a marriage between a Charles Fox and a Phoebe Griggs in Freebridge Lynn, Norfolk, in 1868, although whether this is the same Charles Fox is not known.  There is no record of a subsequent divorce, although there are two records for the death of a Phoebe Fox, one in Shropshire in 1903 and one in Sussex in 1908.

Presumably Charles was, in 1871, working for the Emmett brothers (William, George, Thomas, Henry and Robert), who had began their publishing careers with story papers such as The Young Englishman’s Journal and Young Gentlemen of Great Britain, in the mid-1860s at 45 Essex Street, Strand, before moving to 81 and then 145 Fleet Street in 1868 and 1869 respectively.  Various sources have suggested that Fox became the Emmetts’ office manager, and certainly at around this time his name began appearing as the publisher of some of the Emmett papers.  In August 1870 Fox was named as the publisher of The Young Briton;  in October 1870 the paper was published by Henry Lea, and Fox took over again in April 1871, when he was also publishing Sons of Britannia.  In September 1871 he launched The Belles of England, edited by George Emmett and which ran for exactly a year; and in April 1873 he began publishing George Emmett’s The Young Englishman.

In March 1871 he had taken over The Boys’ Budget of Plays, Characters, Scenes and Stories from Henry Lea, issuing it from Hogarth House, the name the Emmetts had given, in 1871, to their new premises at 8 Fetter Lane.  The Hogarth House name moved to 9 & 10 St. Bride’s Avenue, Fleet Street, in September 1872, and round about 1877 the company was taken over by Charles Fox, following the bankruptcies of William Emmett in 1875 and George Emmett two years later.  It was subsequently, in 1881, taken over by William Cate, who remained at Bride’s Lane until 1885 when he moved to 32 Bouverie Street.

In 1877 Fox took over The Boy’s Standard, which was being published from Victoria House, Newcastle Street, Strand, and which had been launched by William Lucas in November 1875.  In May 1881 Fox re-launched it, relying heavily on stories reprinted from earlier Emmett papers, and it went on to run until June 1892.  By then he had also launched the first of his own boys’ papers, The Boy’s Own Novelette, in September 1879 (which ran to four numbers only).  In 1882 he moved to 3A Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, and in August 1884, operating out of Caxton House, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, he launched The Boy’s Leisure Hour, which was largely a re-issue of The Boy’s Standard.  After 10 numbers, the publication address moved to 4 Shoe Lane, Fleet Street.

At the time of the 1881 census Charles Fox was living at 33 Nicholas Street, Tower Hamlets, as a boarder with the family of Amelia Jackson, shown to be a married woman with no occupation. She was born Amelia de Silva Davis in Stepney in 1849, her father, Nathaniel Davis, being an ink manufacturer. She had married Samuel Robert Jackson, a 17 year-old engineer, on 25 December 1864 in Tower Hamlets  –  she was only 16 at the time.  They had one daughter, Amelia Phoebe Elizabeth, born in July 1865. Samuel Jackson died in 1870, and by 1877 Amelia had begun an affair with Charles Fox, as evidenced by the birth of a child, Adelaide Maud, in 1878. Both she and Amelia Phoebe were baptised on the same day, 13 April 1879, at St. Thomas’s Church, Stepney.  The baptism register indicated that there was some confusion as to their parentage  –  Amelia is recorded as Amelia Phoebe Jackson, with Charles Fox initially recorded as her father but his name crossed out and replaced with Samuel. Adelaide was recorded as Adelaide Maud Fox, with her father as Charles, and with both Fox and Jackson recorded as her surname. However, two years later in the 1881 census she was recorded as Adelaide Jackson.

Charles and Amelia had two more children out of wedlock:  Charles Edward, born in Mile End in October 1879, and Daisy Nash born in 1882. There are no baptism records for them, and in the 1881 census Charles Edward was recorded as Charles Jackson.

Charles Fox and Amelia were married on 21 April 1885 at the parish church of Bromley St. Leonard in Poplar. By then they had moved there, and the 1891 census shows them living at 15 Wellington Road, Bromley St. Leonard, with daughter Amelia and son Harold, along with an 18 year-old servant. Adelaide and Daisy were away at a small boarding school in Colney Hatch Lane, Friern Barnet.

In the meantime, Charles Fox had continued his publishing activities, launching The Boy’s Half Holiday in April 1887 (edited by Alfred Burrage), which merged with The Boy’s Leisure Hour after only 12 numbers.  In 1885 he published six numbers of the monthly Champion Library, and in 1889, from 4 Shoe Lane, he launched The Boy’s Champion Journal, edited by George Emmett, and which again recycled material from the earlier Emmett papers. It was incorporated into The Boy’s Standard in January 1892. Fox replaced it with Every Boy’s Favourite Journal, which ran from January to October 1892, and in June 1892 he launched The Boy’s Weekly Novelette from 109 Shoe Lane.  He then ran into financial difficulties in October 1892, and in November 1892 he was declared bankrupt, with liabilities of £3,269 and assets of just £50 (Morning Post, 8 November 1892, p 8).  However, this appears not have affected him too much  –  The Boy’s Weekly Novelette continued until September 1895, and four more papers followed: Jolly Bits from Jolly Books, a weekly comic edited by George Emmett, which lasted for just six numbers between August and September 1892; Boys of the Nation, again a rehash of old stories and old illustrations, launched in September 1895 from 9 Red Lion Court, and which ran for only 13 numbers; The Halfpenny Standard Journal, from 9 Red Lion Court, launched in March 1896 and which again relied on old material, and which ran until October 1897; and School and Playground Stories, which ran from January to August 1898.

Fox also issued a number of penny-part serials under his own name  –  these included Giant Jack, A Story of the Red Mountains, The Gipsy Gentleman, Morgan the Buccaneer, The Poor Boys of London, A Sword for a Fortune, Broad-Arrow Jack, The Adventures of Jack Sheppard, Turnpike Dick, The Star of the Road, Captain Macheath, The Prince of the Highway, and, perhaps most notably, versions of Spring-Heeled Jack, The Terror of London and Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (both attributed to Alfred Burrage, writing as Charlton Lea).

Charles Fox spent around 10 years, from 1882 to 1892, working out of Shoe Lane, in respect of which what seems to be the only contemporary account of him appeared in 1925. Writing in the collectors’ magazine Vanity Fair (Vol. II, no. 17, p 47), Ben Winskill recalled in an article on “The Penny Dreadful Offices”:

    Charles Fox managed his own business and had but one assistant.
    He served me many times over the counter of the old Shoe Lane
    office which I must say was one of the cleanest and tidiest of
    them…… I remember that Fox was a hearty bluff sort of man….

The 1901 census showed Charles and Amelia still at 15 Wellington Road. Charles had, by then, abandoned the publishing business and was working as a commercial clerk. Also living with them were their son Charles, also a commercial clerk, and daughter Daisy. Adelaide had married George Edelesten Stewart, an engineer, in South Shields in 1897, and in 1901 was living in Hampshire. Son Harold was at a boys’ boarding school (Brunswick House, Wood Street, Chipping Barnet). The family was still living at 15 Wellington Road ten years later, with Charles described as a commission agent. The Electoral Registers for 1914 and 1915 show that their accommodation consisted of two unfurnished rooms, with Amelia as the landlord. (She was also the landlord another single, furnished, room let to a Ronald James Prideaux, a theatre owner). 

Charles Fox died in September 1917. He did not, it seems, leave a will. His wife died on 7 March 1930, at 53 Galveston Road, East Putney, leaving an estate valued at just under £5,000 (around £270,000 in today’s terms).

There seems to be no further trace of the children Amelia, Charles and Daisy. Harold Nash married in 1914. Curiously, his marriage certificate showed his father as being a compositor, suggesting that Charles Fox made a short-lived return to the fringes of the publishing business.

Henry Lea

HENRY LEA

by

Robert J. Kirkpatrick

Henry Lea is something of an enigma  –  a prolific publisher of penny dreadfuls, periodicals and books who flourished between 1851 and 1871, who was bankrupted three times, yet who died, in today’s terms, a millionaire.  His story has never been told before, although even now, with access to online genealogy and other records, there are still gaps to be filled in.

Henry Lea was born on 11 February 1829 in Clerkenwell, in central London, and baptised on 19 April 1829 at St. James’s church, Clerkenwell.  His parents were John and Sarah Lea, his father being a licensed victualler (and not an engraver as previously thought), living in Goswell Street, Clerkenwell.  Henry was one of six children, his siblings being Catherine (b. 31 January 1825, died shortly afterwards), Eliza (b. 12 February 1826), Catherine (b. 25 March 1827), Joseph (b. 19 October 1830), and Eleanor (b. 23 March 1832).  All were baptised at St. James’s, Clerkenwell.

It is known (from the pubshistory.com website) that John Lea was the landlord of The Grapes and Can public house in Goswell Street in 1839.  He died two years after this, and was buried in St. James’s churchyard, Clerkenwell, on 13 January 1841.

There appears to be no trace of his surviving family in the 1841 census, nor in the following two censuses.  However, it is known that Henry Lea married Ann Wells (born around 1827) at St. Mark’s, Clerkenwell, on 7 August 1851.  They went on to have six children:  Eliza (baptised 15 September 1852 at St. Stephens, Canonbury Road, Islington), Henry Thomas (baptised on 26 July 1855 at the same church), Charles (b. 30 December 1855 and baptised on 23 January 1856 at St. Sepulchre’s, Holborn), Walter (b. 15 May 1858 and baptised on 13 June 1860 at St. Peter’s, West Hackney), Albert (b. 24 May 1860 and baptised on 13 June 1860 at St. Peter’s, West Hackney), and Ann (b. 2 April 1862, baptised 9 July 1862 at the same church).

The baptism records for these children show that in 1852 Henry was living at 18 William Street, New North Road, Islington, working as a bookseller;  in 1855 he was living at 22 Warwick Lane, Newgate Street (sometimes referred to as Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row), working as a publisher and/or bookseller;  in 1858 and 1860 he was living at 5 De Beauvoir Place, Hackney;  and in 1862 he was living at 27 Graham Road, Dalston.

(Just to confuse matters, there was another Henry Lea, born in the City of London in August 1828, who spent all his working life living in Finsbury, and later Islington, employed as a lithographic printer.  There was also a third Henry Lea (1801-1883), who was a music publisher and seller (and a professor of music and composer) who operated out of 36 Strand and then 8 Park Terrace, Camden Town, for many years between around 1835 and 1870.)

Henry Lea began his publishing career (for which he used the imprints H. Lea and Henry Lea) at the end of 1851 (and not in 1840, as some library and booksellers’ catalogues suggest), when an advertisement in The Examiner on 27 December announced the forthcoming publication, in January 1852, by Henry Lea of Warwick Lane and Willoughby & Co. of 26 Smithfield, of Edward Charlton, or Life Behind the Counter, written by Frederick Ross, a fictionalised exposé of working conditions in the drapery trade.  This was so popular it went to a second edition in February 1852.

Lea remained at 22 Warwick Lane until 1863.  In the ten years preceding this he advertised widely in local newspapers up and down the country, and published a bewildering number of books, periodicals and penny-part serials.  His first periodical was the short-lived Young Englishman’s Magazine, launched in March 1853 and which ran for just five numbers.  This was a largely educational 32-page monthly which carried little in the way of fiction, which may explain its short life.  In September 1853 Lea began his first penny-part serial, Dollars and Cents, or The Glen Luna Family, written by Amy Lothrop (real name Anna Bartlett Warner  –  the story was first published in America in 1852).  His second periodical, The Pictorial London Paper, was announced in July 1854, although this only lasted for a few numbers.
   

On 27 October 1857 Lea, describing himself as a bookseller, applied to be admitted to the Freedom of the City of London.  In the following month, he took over publication of the The Boys’ and Girls” Companion for Leisure Hours.  This had been launched by Houlston & Wright in April 1857  –  Lea published it between November 1857 and March 1858, when it was taken over by W. Kent, of 51 & 52 Paternoster Row.  The title changed to The Companion for Youth in October 1858, and in December 1859 Lea advertised that from January 1860 it would be published by him, although in October 1860 it was taken over, again, by Dean & Son.

Lea was probably best-known for his penny-part serials, of which he issued at least 50 between 1853 and 1866.  The following list is compiled from a range of sources, including websites, library catalogues and reference books, and includes only those items known to have been released in weekly parts (some appearing in the series Lea’s Illustrated Standard Library)  –  some items included elsewhere were almost certainly one-volume re-issues of earlier serials.

• The Adventures of a Vagabond (16 parts)
• Alfred, or The Adventures of a French Gentleman (G.W.M. Reynolds, 30 parts)
• Amy Lawrence, the Freemason’s Daughter (J.F. Smith, 35 parts, 1860)
• The Barber of Paris (Paul de Kock, 11 parts)
• Black Rollo the Pirate, or The Dark Woman of the Deep (Captain I. Lyons, 93 parts, 1861)
• The Boy Actor, or Struggles for Bread (28 parts 1864)
• The Boy Brigand, or The Dark King of the Mountains (Alfred Coates, 33 parts, 1864)
• The Boy Rover, or The Smuggler of the South Seas (Lieut. Parker, 61 parts, 1864)
• The Broken Heart, or The Village Bride (Mary Bennett, 49 parts, 1856)
• The Career of Richard Savage:  A Romance of Real Life (Charles Whitehead, 28 parts, 1858)
• The Child of Mystery, or The Cottager’s Daughter (Hannah Maria Jones)
• Christopher Tadpole at Home and Abroad (Albert Smith, 43 parts, 1857)
• Chronicles of the Bastille (1858)
• Colonel Jack, or The Life of a Highwayman (J.F. Smith, 104 parts, 1860)
• Coombe Abbey, an Historical Tale of the Reign of James the First (37 parts, 1857)
• The Cottage Girl, or The Marriage Day (Mrs Bennett, 32 parts, 1860)
• The Dashing Girls of London, or The Six Beauties of St. James (1864)
• Dollars and Cents, or The Glen Luna Family (Amy Lothrop, 1853)
• The Doomed Ship, A Tale of the Arctic Regions (William Hurton, 16 parts, 1855)
• Emmaline, or The Orphan of the Castle (1856)
• Eva the Outcast, A Tale of Gipsy Life (1864)
• The Farmer of Inglewood Forest (Elizabeth Helme, 48 parts)
• The Forest Queen, Maid Marian.  A Story of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, in Sherwood Forest (30 parts, 1855)
• Gideon Giles, the Roper (Thomas Miller, 49 parts, 1860)
• The Gipsy Thief, or The Haunted Oak (Hannah Maria Jones, 31 parts, 1858)
• Grace Walton, or The Wanderers of the Heath (Thomas Peckett Prest, 39 parts, 1855)
• Guy Fawkes, or The Conspirator’s Bride (14 parts)
• The Haunted Woman, or Passion and Perseverance (20 parts, 1866)
• The Headless Horseman (Mayne Reid, 30 parts)
• Jane Shore, or The Goldsmith’s Wife (Mary Bennett, 46 parts, 1864)
• Jem Blunt:  A Tale of the Land and the Ocean (W.M. Barker, 1864)
• Life in Paris, or The Adventures of a Marquis (Vidocq, 1856)
• Lightning Dick, or The Dark House in Whitefriars (21 parts, 1865)
• The Miser of Shoreditch, or The Curse of Avarice (Thomas Peckett Prest, 1855)
• The Mysteries of the Court of Denmark (Lady Charlotte Gordon, 30 parts)
• Nan Darrell, or The Highwayman’s Daughter (12 parts, 1862)
• The Ocean Child, or The Wanderer of the Deep (104 parts, 1862)
• Old Bartholomew Fair:  a Historical Tale of the Reign of George the Third (12 parts)
• Old London Bridge, A Romance of the Sixteenth Century (52 parts, 1855)
• The Old Sailor’s Jolly Boat, Laden with Tales and Yarns (1855)
• The Outsiders of Society, or The Wild Beauties of London (20 parts, 1866)
• Pickwick Abroad, or The Tour in France (78 parts, 1857)
• The Pride of the Village, or The Farmer’s Daughters (Hannah Maria Jones, 51 parts, 1858)
• Quadroona, or The Slave Mother (Percy B. St. John, 40 parts, 1860)
• Schamyl, or The Wild Woman of Circassia (Thomas Peckett Prest, 52 parts, 1856)
• The Scottish Chiefs (Miss Jane Porter, 1853)
• The Sepoy’s Daughter, A True Tale of the Indian War (109 parts, 1860)
• The Sister of Mercy, or The Soldier’s Victim (by Major Fitzwarryne, 36 parts)
• The Soldier’s Victim, or The Sister of Mercy (36 parts, 1858)
• Tales of Shipwrecks and Adventures at Sea (15 parts, 1866)
• Valentine Vox (Henry Cockton, 80 parts, 1863)
• Vice and its Victims, or Phoebe the Peasant’s Daughter (Thomas Peckett Prest, 72 parts)
• The Watchmaker (Alexandra Dumas, 13 parts, 1858)
• Young Ladies of London, or The Mysteries of Midnight (1864)

Lea’s periodicals from the 1850s and early 1860s included The War Chronicle (February 1854), The Household Journal (February 1854), The Home Magazine (November 1856), The Companion Library (complete novels published monthly, launched in 1856), The Indian War Chronicle (October 1857), Lea’s Penny Novelist (1858), Lea’s Illustrated British Drama and Theatrical Portrait Gallery (launched January 1859, published weekly for 45 numbers and then monthly), Once a Month (original novels, beginning with Mayne Reid’s Despard the Sportsman, 1860), and The Halfpenny Miscellany (1861  –  see below).

Amongst the books he published during the same period were The Patriotic Songbook (1855  –  he also published several other song books and reciters, such as The Rifle Volunteer Songster, 1860), Female Life Among the Mormons (1855), The Poetical Works of William Cowper (1855), a series of The Fireside Library, which included Horace Walopole’s The Castle of Otranto, Washington Irving’s Tales of a Traveller and Victor Hugo’s The Demon Dwarf (1856), Other Times, or The Monks of Leadenhall (1857), The Life of Douglas Jerrold (by Thomas Peckett Prest, 1857), a Uniform Series of Handbooks (on a variety of subjects, 1858), a series of novels by Mrs Southworth (1859), The Juvenile Museum, or A Child’s Library of Amusement and Instruction (1859), a series of Captain Armstrong’s Popular Sea Tales (1860), The Complete Works of Shakespeare (in weekly and monthly parts, 1860), The Book of Field Sports (in monthly parts, 1860), and Every Day Law for Every Day Life and The New Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (September 1861).

This last title presumably came in useful five months later, when Lea was declared bankrupt, on 10 February 1862 (London Gazette, 21 February 1862).  A month later, The London Daily News (5 March 1862) reported that his debts were around £10,000, and his assets sufficient for a dividend of two or three shillings in the pound.  These figures were subsequently amended in the same newspaper (29 April 1862) to debts and liabilities of £14,600, assets of £1,900, with a further £2,172 assets held by creditors as security.  It was also stated that £569 of his liabilities were in connection with The Halfpenny Miscellany, which he appears to have bought from Thomas Wilks, of 1 Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, in late 1861. 

His bankruptcy did not stop him advertising, on 8 March 1862, a re-issue of The Sepoy’s Daughter, which he had earlier published in penny parts in 1860.

He was discharged from his bankruptcy on 28 April 1862 (London Gazette, 6 May 1862), although he did not re-appear as a publisher until the following January, operating out of 125 Fleet Street, and advertising The Halfpenny Miscellany which had survived his financial difficulties. (This became The Penny Miscellany in September 1865, having been taken over and issued from The Office, Aldine Chambers, Paternoster Row).  At the same time he also advertised The Book of Domestic Pets;  an edition of John Frederick Smith’s Amy Lawrence, or The Freemason’s Daughter;  and re-issues of the serials The Gipsy Chief, or The Haunted Oak;  The Child of Mystery, or The Cottager’s Daughter; The Forest Girl, or The Mountain Hut;  and The Scottish Chiefs.  Later publications from 1863 included Tales of the American War, The Sporting Pilot (a periodical), The Jewellers’, Goldsmiths’, Silversmiths’ and Modellers’ Journal of Art and Manufacture, and a new series of The Cottage Journal. 

In 1864 Lea moved to 112 Fleet Street, from where he launched his second boys’ periodical, The Boy’s Friend, in June 1864.  This was a high quality 48-page monthly, priced at threepence, which, like one or two of its predecessors such as Edward Harrison’s Boy’s Miscellany, combined exciting if not exactly bloodthirsty fiction with instruction and information.  Its contributors included Percy B. St. John and Mayne Reid.  The first number carried an advertisement for another Lea monthly, The Boy’s Penny Journal, although it seems that this failed to appear. 

In December 1864 Lea launched The London Library, a series of complete stories, priced at one penny, which began with The White Boys, or The Oath of Vengeance, a Story of Ireland. 
In April 1865 The Boy’s Friend was taken over by Houlston & Wright, a consequence of Lea’s second bankruptcy, declared in March that year (London Gazette, 14 March 1865).  In addition, Richard Isaac Beard, of 16 Bear Alley and 29 Farringdon Street, a printer with whom Lea was a partner, was bankrupted two months later (London Gazette, 5 May 1865).  (Beard had published The Cottage Journal between September 1861 and January 1863.  He later became a licensed victualler, as did Lea).

Lee was not discharged from this second bankruptcy until April 1868.  In May 1865 he had advertised a series of Popular Novels, but he stopped advertising after this date, and did not re-appear until just over three years later, in August 1868, when two publications, Nobody’s Child and The Champion Handbook of Healthy Sports, were announced from new premises at 13 Paternoster Row.  What he was doing during this lengthy absence is not known, other than that he launched The World We Live In, or The Tribunals of All Nations, a one penny weekly, on 2 October 1867, which only survived for one number.  He continued advertising from 13 Paternoster Row until April 1869, before disappearing until February 1870, when he turned up at 147 Fleet Street, launching At Home and Abroad, A Weekly Magazine for the Youth of All Nations.  Like his previous boy’s papers, this combined fiction with factual articles, and ran for 44 numbers before closing in December 1870.

He then moved to 275 Strand, from where he launched Sons of Britannia on 14 March 1870.  This was edited by William Emmett and included serials by authors such as Charles Stevens, W. Stephens Hayward, George Emmett and Percy B. St John.  Publication was transferred to Charles Fox at Hogarth House in March 1871.  Earlier, in May 1870, he had launched The Fortune Teller:  A Journal for Lovers and Sweethearts (four numbers only), and in October 1870, Lea had taken over publication of The Young Briton from Charles Fox, handing it back to him in April 1871.  In January 1871 he took over Henry Williams’s Boys’ Halfpenny Weekly Budget of Plays, Stories, Characters and Scenes, a magazine which focussed on the toy theatre and which had been launched in October 1870, although it was soon taken over again, in March 1871, by Charles Fox.

Lea’s last publication was probably The Family Reader, which he advertised in The Standard on 19 January 1871.  His involvement with this was short-lived  –  in March 1871 he instituted his own liquidation proceedings (London Gazette, 21 March 1871), and The Family Reader (which went on to run until 1920) was taken over firstly by Frederick Farrah and then by John Conway.

This signalled the end of Henry Lea’s career as a publisher.  At the time of the 1871 census, taken on 2 April, he was living at 1 St. Paul’s Villa, Gascoyne Road, Hackney, still described as a publisher and bookseller.  Living with him were his wife Ann and children Charles (aged 15, a shopman), Walter (aged 12), and Annie (aged 9).

He subsequently took up his father’s trade and became a licensed victualler, recorded as such in the 1881 census, living at Albert House, Friern Road, Camberwell, with his wife and a servant.  There is no trace of him in the 1891 census, but it is recorded that he died on 9 November 1893 at 391 Holloway Road, Islington, described in the probate records as a “gentleman” and leaving an estate worth £13,901 (£1.35 million in today’s terms)  –  probate was granted to Henry Thomas, a licensed victualler, and his two sons Charles Lea and Walter Lea.  How he accumulated such a massive fortune in the 20 or so years following his third bankruptcy is an utter mystery.  His will, dated 10 July 1893, gives no clues  –  after small cash gifts to his surviving sons and their wives, and to other relatives, including annuities to his sister and niece, the rest of his estate, unspecified, was bequeathed to his wife.

Three of his sons followed Henry by entering the pub business.  Charles Lea married Mary Perry, a 28 year-old widow (her father was Thomas North, a licensed victualler) on 6 March 1874 in Peckham.  After running pubs in Peckham and Hoxton, he died on 9 March 1896 in Woodberry Down, Finsbury Park, described as a “Gentleman” and leaving an estate valued at £7,537.

Walter Lea married 19 year-old Annie Elizabeth Wise, the daughter of William Wise, a cigar merchant, on 25 September 1885 in Deptford.  He had previously been working for Charles in Peckham, but then moved to Hammersmith.  He seems to have retired from the licensed trade early, as in 1901 he was living “on his own means” in Hastings, with his wife and two servants.  He died on 24 December 1926, leaving an estate valued at £3,647.

Henry Thomas Lea married Louise Maria Cathie in Bloomsbury on 9 August 1876.  He spent many years as a licensed victualler in Barnes, before moving to Hammersmith.  He died in Hastings in 1939.  What became of Henry Lea’s fourth son, Albert, is not known, although as he is not mentioned in Henry’s will it is assumed that he died at an early age.

Edward Harrison of Merton House (part 2)

EDWARD HARRISON

OF MERTON HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE

by

Robert J. Kirkpatrick

Edward Harrison had launched The Young Ladies’ Journal in 1864 in partnership with James Henry Dunlop Jehring, a printer, and John Peter Wall, a wood engraver at 188 Strand. This partnership was dissolved by mutual consent on 6 April 1865, although an announcement to this effect did not appear in the London Gazette until 1 February 1867. (John Wall died eleven months later).

James Jehring, born in Glasgow in 1821, came to London in the early 1840s and established himself as a printer. After marrying Jane Turner in Clerkenwell in 1846, he moved to St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster (1851 census) and later to Grosvenor Park, Newington (1861 and 1871 censuses – in the latter census he was shown as employing 25 men, 20 women, 16 boys and 6 girls). By then he had formed a partnership with Edward Harrison as Harrison and Jehring as printers (later Harrison, Jehring & Co.), initially at 15 & 16 Portpool Lane, Gray’s Inn Road (1863) and later at 25 & 27 Portpool Lane (1882 onwards).

By 1881 Jehring had moved to Enmore House, Woodside Green, Surrey – the 1881 census showed he was employing 33 men, 40 women and 20 boys. He died at Enmore House on 21 March 1896, leaving an estate worth £8,329 (£850,000 in today’s terms). His son, Ernest Augustus (born 17 November 1856), took over his role in the company.

As well as his printing partnership with James Jehring, Edward Harrison also worked in partnership with Edward Henry Viles, best-known as an author. Viles, born in Southwark in November 1841, spent most of his life in Staffordshire, firstly working as an accountant’s clerk before finding his metier as a writer. In 1864 he helped Harrison launch The Young Ladies’ Journal, and he remained a close collaborator with both Harrison and his sons until his death. He was also a partner in the printing firm of Sweeting & Co. of 4 Dyer’s Buildings, Holborn. He obviously maintained a London address, a necessity given his work, and as evidenced by the birth places of some of his children – his daughter Minnie, for example, was born in Kentish Town in 1864; his son Edward was born in Bloomsbury in 1867; and his daughter Louisa was born in Bloomsbury in 1869, and baptised in Haverstock Hill, with her father’s address given as 62 Brecknock Road, Kentish Town.

By 1870 Viles had made enough money, although it is not clear how, to build and occupy Pendryl Hall in Codsall Wood, Staffordshire, a substantial country house, where he indulged his passion for photography – in particular, he became an expert in microphotography, and exhibited at the Royal Photographic Society and published numerous articles in photography journals.

In the 1881 census, he is recorded as living at Pendryl Hall with his wife, Annie (née Bennett, born in Bilston, Staffordshire around 1841 – they married in 1863), four children, and six domestic staff. Rather strangely, online histories of Pendryl Hall (it is now a wedding venue) refer to Viles renting the property to a local businessman for the use of his married daughter in 1879.

In 1888, Viles was living at16 Wetherby Gardens, Brompton, Kensington. In the 1891 census his sons Edward and Harold were described as an “Assistant Editor” and a “Publisher Books” respectively.

Edward Viles senior died on 8 December 1891, leaving an estate worth £16,893 (£1.6 million in today’s terms). Probate was granted to his widow and to his son Edward.

Edward Harrison junior was born in 1851 and baptised at St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, on 22 July 1852. (He was actually Edward and Mary’s second son to be named Edward – the first, born on 8 January 1846 and baptised at St. Leonard’s on 21 April 1848, died a few months later and was buried in St. Mary’s churchyard, Haggerston, Hackney, on 21 September 1848). He presumably joined his father’s business after leaving school – in the 1871 census an Edward Harrison, publisher, is recorded as a visitor at an address in Hoxton. In 1878, he married Amy Grace Brearey (born in Brixton in 1856) at St. George’s, Hanover Square, with whom he went on to have five children: Ethel (b. 1880), Kathleen (b. 1882), Freda (b. 1885), Sibyl (b. 1887), and Shirley Cecil (b. 1890) In 1881, he and his wife and Ethel were living in Tyson Road, Lewisham, along with Edward’s widowed brother George (who was not shown as having any trade or profession, but who had been described in the 1871 census as a bookseller). By 1891 the family had moved to 28 Crystal Palace Road, Beckenham, Kent, which was, at the time of that year’s census, occupied by Edward, Amy, their five children and four servants. In 1893 the family moved to Endrick Bank, Honor Oak Park, Surrey, where Edward died on 23 May 1895, leaving an estate valued at £4,459 (around £450,000 in today’s terms). He was buried in Nunhead Cemetery on 27 May 1895.

At the time of his death, he was a partner in Harrison & Viles; Harrison, Jehring & Co.; and Sweeting & Co. His wife took over his role in all three companies, although the partnership running Sweeting & Co. (James Cowie, J.H.D. Jehring, Amy Harrison, Frederick William Harrison and Ernest Augustus Jehring) was dissolved by mutual consent on 30 June 1895, with James Cowie carrying on the business on his own. (London Gazette, 13 August 1895). In November 1897, Frederick left the partnership operating as Newspaper Proprietors and Publishers at Merton House, Salisbury Square, leaving it in the hands of Amy Harrison and Annie Viles. (London Gazette, 23 November 1897). Two months later, he left the partnership running Harrison, Jehring & Co., leaving Amy Harrison, Annie Viles and Ernest Jehring to continue it. (London Gazette, 18 January 1898). This partnership was itself dissolved on 30 March 1901, with Ernest Jehring taking sole responsibility (London Gazette, 17 September 1901).

Annie Viles died four years later, on 24 July 1905, at 2 Downside Crescent, Havertsock Hill, Middlesex, leaving an estate worth £1,926 (£181,000 today); Amy Harrison died on 14 August 1910, at 21 Mowbray Road, Norwood, leaving an estate worth £3,583 (£320,00 today).

What happened to Frederick William Harrison is a mystery. He was born in 1858 (exact date of birth is not known); in the 1871 census an F.W. Harrison is recorded at a small boarding school in Hampstead; but after the 1881 census, when he was living with his father at Kingsbury House, aged 23, but with no apparent trade or profession, there are no definite sightings of him in the online genealogy records. Whilst his father left him a share in Harrison & Viles, and whilst he also became a partner in Harrison & Jehring, he did not stay associated with these companies for long, leaving both in 1897. What became of him after that is a mystery.

Edward Harrison’s second son, George Leekey Harrison (his middle name came from his mother’s family) is another rather mysterious figure. He was born on 14 September 1849 and baptised at St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, on 22 July 1852 (at the same time as his brother Edward). After leaving home in the late 1860s he appears to have begun his working life as a bookseller, presumably working for his father – he was shown as such in the 1871 census, when he was recorded as a visitor at an address in Brixton. He married Florence Jane Guiver (born in Bilston, Staffordshire in 1852 – at the time of her marriage her father was the Treasurer at the Drury Lane Theatre) at St. Pancras on 4 December 1872, while they were both living at 3 Mornington Crescent, with George described as a publisher. They moved to 10 Stansfield Road, Brixton, where they had two children: Ernest George (born in 1873) and Florence Nelly (born in 1875).

George’s wife died four years after the birth of her second child, and was buried in Norwood Cemetery on 19 February 1879. Both children were subsequently brought up by their maternal grandparents in Brixton. In the 1881 census, George was living with his brother Edward and his wife Amy in Lewisham, his profession being shown as a Lace Importer. In 1885 he inherited his father’s interest in the printing firm of Harrison & Jehring – however, he appears to have sold this fairly quickly, as in the 1891 census he is recorded as “living on his own means” and staying at a hotel in Brighton.

He then seems to have taken a lead from his father-in-law, who had become a theatrical manager, and at the time of the 1901 census he was working as a theatrical agent and lodging in Aberavon, Wales. However, this clearly did not work out, and the last trace of him, rather sadly, is in the 1911 census when a George L. Harrison is recorded as an inmate in the St. Pancras Workhouse, 4 King’s Road, Camden Town, his profession given as journalist. He was also shown as married (whereas in 1881, 1891 and 1901 he was shown as widowed), although there does not appear to be any online record of a second marriage. Neither is there any obvious record of his death, although family trees posted on the Ancestry website suggest he died in 1950.

The firm of Harrison & Viles moved from 135 Salisbury Court to 8 Farringdon Avenue in 1902. At that time, it was being run by Edward Harold Viles’s two sons, Edward Bennett Viles (born in 1866) and Harold Bennett Viles (born 1868), along with Amy Harrison. Amongst the publications they were still issuing were The Young Ladies’ Journal, Harrison’s Dressmaker and The Guide to the Worktable, plus they still had stocks of penny dreadfuls such as Black Bess. On 4 December 1906 Harrison & Viles was incorporated as Harrison & Viles Limited, a private company limited by shares, with a share capital of £292 divided into £1 shares. Its major shareholders were Edward Viles, Harold Viles and Amy Harrison, having 288 shares between them. Edward Viles became the General Manager. After Amy Harrison’s death in 1910, her place as a director was taken by her daughter Katherine Kingsbury Harrison, with Amy’s shares allocated to largely to Katherine and and her two sisters Freda and Sibyl.

Ten years later, the directors felt obliged to appoint a liquidator, having resolved, on 21 April 1920, that the company was no longer viable. In January 1921 the liquidator pinpointed the wartime increase in paper prices as the reason for the company’s declining profits. In June 1919 the directors had tried, without success, to raise extra capital to meet their increasing costs, and so in August 1919 they approached George Newnes Ltd. with a view to selling up – Newnes subsequently purchased all their titles on 17 November 1919 for £2,000, and Harrison & Viles effectively ceased to exist.

This was not without its problems, as both Viles brothers then claimed damages for breach of a life agreement written into the company’s Memorandum of Association – that they would remain directors for life. Edward made a claim for £3,120 plus £545 in “lost” director’s fees; Harold made a similar claim although this was later withdrawn. The company’s creditors objected, especially when the liquidator wrote that if the claims were met they would only receive around 50% of the amounts they were owed. In the event, a compromise was reached, although the terms are not known. (Source: National Archives files).

Edward Bennett emigrated to Australia in 1924, and died there in 1939; Harold Viles died in Islington in June 1937.

The company of Harrison, Jehring & Co. moved from Portpool Street to 11, 12 & 13 Emerald Street, Theobolds Road, Holborn, in 1905. It continued largely as a printing firm, although a handful of titles appeared under its imprint. In June 1914 its directors created Harrison, Jehring & Company (Limited), with a nominal share capital of £12,000, buying out the old company for £10,839. Towards the end of the First World War the company published a series of photographic portraits of various aspects of the conflict, including “Carry On”: British Women’s Work in War-time; The Sentinel of the Sea: The Tireless Vigil of the British Navy; Through Swamp and Forest: The British Campaigns in Africa; and German Prisoners in Great Britain.

In October 1920, all six shareholders (all members of the Jehring family) sold their shares to United Press Ltd. for £15,000, using the proceeds to pay off outstanding loans. United Press had been formed in May 1922 ostensibly to acquire the titles owned by Lloyds Publications, the last remnants of the publishing empire created by Edward Lloyd in the 1830s. On 17 January 1923 United Press sold all its shares to William Robert Masters, for £4,726, and a month later it was facing a winding-up order. In the meantime, Masters had become the Managing Director of Harrison, Jehring & Co. Ltd., although he was not paid a salary and merely drew expenses. In 1926 he began making loans out of the company’s funds to two other companies with which he was associated – both of them went under in 1928. Edgar Dunlop Jehring (Edward Augustus’s son), who had remained on the company’s board, resigned in protest at Masters’s activities, but this did not prevent Masters from making further bad investments with the company’s cash and accruing further debts.

In June 1930 Masters considered that the company owed him a substantial sum for his services and on 3 June 1930 he gave a promissory note to a registered moneylender as security for a loan of £4,200, bearing interest at 42% per annum. He later secured a further loan of £5,413. Between June 1930 and August 1931 the company paid out £3,818 by way of servicing the loans – capital and interest – but this was insufficient and in October 1931, owed a total of £8,298, the moneylender petitioned for Harrison, Jehring & Co. Ltd. to be wound up – this was dismissed as the court had already ordered the company’s closure. This was the consequence of earlier petitions from creditors, one in January 1930 and the second (from the Forrest Printing Ink Company of Verulam Street, Gray’s Inn Road) in August 1931. A winding-up order was finally made on 13 October 1931, although Harrison, Jehring & Co. Ltd. wasn’t struck off the Companies Register until March 1936. (Sources: National Archives files and the London Gazette).

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Edward Harrison was, perhaps, a more significant figure in the world of cheap Victorian publishing than has previously been recognised. His career as a publisher lasted from the late 1850s until his death in 1885, with his name living on in the shape of the company he founded, and with his success largely due to the popularity of his penny-part serials. As a periodical publisher, he had more failures than successes, although his most successful periodical, The Young Ladies’ Journal, lasted for 56 years between 1864 and 1920. Unlike many of his contemporaries and rivals he was a careful publisher, seemingly only falling foul of the law once, when he was sued by Stannard & Sons, printers, of Oxford Street, who alleged that he had copied one of their maps of Paris and published it in The Gentleman’s Journal in November 1870. Harrison denied that it was a copy while admitting that use had been made of Stannard’s original. He therefore contested the claim, refusing to give up all unsold copies of the Journal and to destroy the block from which his map had been printed. Unfortunately, the outcome of the litigation is not recorded, other than that a breach of copyright had occurred. (Source: National Archives file).

Equally as important was Harrison’s role as a printer. By joining forces with James Jehring in 1863 he was able to maintain control over his own printing costs, plus make money from printing for other publishers. The company of Harrison & Jehring flourished for almost 70 years, although its demise, in 1931, was marked by controversy. So, too, was the demise of the remnants of his publishing business, Harrison & Viles, but it had nevertheless outlasted most of those companies with which it was competing in its early years.

Edward Harrison of Merton House (part 1)

EDWARD HARRISON

OF MERTON HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE

by

Robert J. Kirkpatrick

Edward Harrison was associated with penny dreadfuls and cheap weekly periodicals between around 1860 and 1870, operating out of Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. He issued over 20 penny-part serials, including the well-known Black Bess, or The Knight of the Road, and The Blue Dwarf, and for a while worked in partnership with the author Edward Viles. Yet, despite his name being familiar with enthusiasts and collectors, nothing seems to be have been written about his life and career.

Edward Kingsbury Harrison was born in Clerkenwell on 14 June 1819, to Thomas and Susannah Harrison, and baptised on 1 August 1819 at the parish church of St. James, Clerkenwell. [Note that some sources, most notably my own book From the Penny Dreadful to the Ha’penny Dreadfuller, erroneously suggest that Edward Harrison was born in 1805 in Cornhill, London – this was another Edward Harrison, born into a family of stationers and who himself became a stationer, operating out of 82 Cornhill with his brother Matthew, until the early 1870s]. The family was living in St. John Street, Clerkenwell, with Thomas working as a poulterer. Edward was their second and apparently last child – the first, Thomas James, had been born in October 1817, at Back Road, Islington, and baptised on 2 November 1817 at St. Mary’s, Islington. He died at the age of 15 at Bull and Mouth Street, Aldersgate, and was buried in St. Mary’s churchyard, Lambeth, on 13 June 1832.
   
Nothing is recorded about Edward’s early life or the beginnings of his career – an Edward Harrison of the right age is recorded in the 1841 census working as a bookseller in Cambridge, and living with a Mary Clapham (aged 58) and her 28 year-old daughter Maria, although it is not known if this was same Edward Harrison.

It is known, however, that Edward, then living at 20 Highbury Terrace, Islington (and rather strangely recorded as a canvas manufacturer) married Mary Leekey (born on 9 February 1813 in Basinghall Street, in the City of London, the daughter of George Leekey, a baker) at the parish church of St. Mary’s, Islington, on 13 April 1845. Almost immediately, they moved to 146 Kingsland Road, Hoxton, where they went on to have seven children: Edward (b. 1846, died 1848), Mary Ann (b. 1847), George (b. 1849), Edward (b. 1851), Louisa (b. 1852), Kate (b. 1855), and Frederick William (b. 1858).

As well as being Edward’s home, 146 Kingsland Road was also his business premises, where he began operating as a bookseller in 1846. In 1861, he also operated out of 1 Exeter Exchange, Strand, and by 1862 had moved his second premises to 135 Salisbury Court, off Fleet Street. This was, at some point in the 1860s, given the name Merton House, Salisbury Square, although it was the same building. In 1866, Salisbury Court became his sole business address, and, indeed, remained in the Harrison name until 1902.

By 1861 Harrison had moved the family home from his business premises in Kingsland Road to 49 Alma Street, Hoxton, where, at the time of the 1861 census, he was living with his sons George and Frederick and a servant, the census recording that he was a bookseller and publisher employing ten assistants. His daughters and son Edward were away at a boarding school in Weston Street, Croydon.

As a publisher, Harrison focussed on penny-part serials and weekly periodicals aimed at both children and adults. His first venture appears to have been The Home Magazine, subtitled A Journal of Entertainment and Instruction for Everyone, which was launched in 1856 and ran for at least 400 numbers until 1865. Harrison is also credited with the ownership of Figaro in London (not to be confused with an earlier and more famous weekly with the same title, which was founded by Gilbert Abbot å Beckett in 1831 and published by William Strange, which ran until 1839). This revival, published and printed by John Frederick Stone, ran between 28 February and 23 May 1857, when its title changed to Figaro, or Life As It Is, and as such it ran for only a further 8 weeks.

Harrison’s third venture may have been The Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review, which ran, with a couple of minor changes in its title, from March 1862 to March 1870. This was published by Harrison at Salisbury Court, until October 1864, when it was taken over by George Maddick. (Maddick had, in fact, been associated with it since 1862, probably as editor, and working in partnership with John Tallis).

In October 1863 Harrison, in partnership with Joseph Hardiman, Edwin J. Brett and William Emmett, launched The English Girls’ Journal and Ladies’ Magazine, with Emmett as editor and Harrison as publisher. In February 1864, all four joint-proprietors were taken to court by William Stevens, the proprietor of The Family Herald, for breach of copyright – Emmett had reprinted articles and other material from the Herald without permission. As soon as Harrison was made aware of this, in January 1864, he cut himself off from the magazine, giving his three co-partners all unsold copies and giving up any further rights. Hardiman, Brett and Emmett continued to publish the magazine until October 1864, when their partnership broke up.

In the meantime, Harrison had launched a second periodical aimed at a young female readership, The Young Ladies’ Journal, which went on to run for 2,906 numbers between April 1864 and February 1920 – issues from 1899 onwards carried the imprint of Harrison & Viles. This paper had four spin-offs: between June 1869 and January 1870 there were nine monthly issues of a free supplement, The Young Ladies’ Journal Language of Flowers; these were followed by The Young Ladies’ Journal Complete Guide to the Work-Table (later re-issued as a complete volume, which ran to several editions); in 1892 there were three numbers of The Young Ladies’ Journal Library (re-issued in one volume); and in 1895 there was the Butterfly Series of Complete Stories.

Harrison had rather less success with his two periodicals for boys. In March 1863 he launched The Boy’s Miscellany, an Illustrated Journal of Useful and Entertaining Literature for Youth, a one penny weekly containing stories, factual and instructive articles, puzzles and exercises. Harrison kept this going until January 1864, when it was taken over by its printers, Maddick & Pottage, in lieu of unpaid debts. It was subsequently published by George Maddick, although it closed down in July 1864. In an intriguing reversal of fortunes, Harrison later took over Maddick’s Boy’s Penny Monthly, which had been launched in July 1864 and which ended up in Harrison’s hands the following November – its precise length of run is not known.

The Boy’s Miscellany was the first weekly boys’ periodical to give a prominent role to “sensational” fiction, and it was notably followed by Edwin J. Brett’s Boys of England in 1866, which in turn was followed by numerous rival papers published by the likes of the Emmett brothers, John Allingham and Samuel Dacre Clarke. In November 1869 Harrison tried to draw readers away from some of these early weekly boys’ papers with The Gentleman’s Journal, an Illustrated Magazine of Literature, Information and Amusement (later called The Gentleman’s Journal and Youth’s Miscellany), which claimed to offer a higher quality of material. Edited by George Frederick Pardon (“Captain Crawley”) and printed by Harrison & Jehring (see later for details of this partnership), it was accompanied by free monthly supplements containing a range of factual articles, and free colour plates, and while it was definitely a better-quality product than its rivals, it proved to be too expensive to maintain, and it ended its run in September 1872, when it was merged with The Young Ladies’ Journal.

In October 1863, Harrison launched The New Newgate Calendar, containing the Remarkable Lives and Trials of Notorious Criminals Past and Present. This ran for 80 weekly numbers until 1865, and contained a mixture of genuine accounts of criminals and their trials and serial fiction. It was re-issued from April 1867 onwards.

Other periodicals published by Harrison included Mr Merryman (March 1864, three numbers only, an illustrated comic weekly), and The Illustrated London Novelist (October 1864 onwards, one penny weekly and sixpence monthly, subsequently re-issued in one volume).

Harrison was perhaps better-known for his penny-part serials, of which he issued well over 20, most being subsequently re-issued as complete volumes, between 1860 and 1870. Thirteen are listed in A. E. Waite’s Quest for Bloods, and a further ten in COPAC. Dating these is not always easy – the following list is in alphabetical order, with dates (and other information) where given those in Waite or COPAC:

• The Adventures and Vicissitudes of Captain Cook, Mariner (20 parts, 1870)
• Black Bess, or The Knight of the Road (by Edward Viles , 254 parts, 1863-68)
• The Black Highwaymen (by Edward Viles, sequel to Black Bess – 86 parts, 1868-69)
• The Blue Dwarf (60 parts – 1860-61)
• Blueskin: A Romance of the Last Century (by Edward Viles , 158 parts, 1866-67)
• Clifton Grey, or Love and War (by Pierce Egan, c. 1870)
• The Dance of Death, or The Hangman’s Plot (23 parts)
• Edward the Black Prince (by Pierce Egan, c. 1870)
• Gentleman Clifford, and His White Mare Brilliant (by Edward Viles, 35 parts, 1864)
• The Ghost’s Secret, A Tale of Terror (8 parts, 1863)
• Jessie, the Mormon’s Daughter (by Percy B. St. John, 64 parts, 1861)
• The Lady of Title: A Tale of High Life (12 parts, 1861)
• The Life and Surprising Adventures of Charles Peace (1879?)
• The London Apprentice and The Goldsmith’s Daughter of East Chepe (by Pierce Egan, 97 parts, 1855)
• Little John and Will Scarlett, or The Outlaws of Sherwood Forest (40 parts, 1865)
• The Mystery of Marlborough House (51 parts, 1866)
• The Orphan Sisters, or The Lovers’ Secret (24 parts)
• Red Gauntlet, or The Bandit (26 parts)
• Robin Hood and Little John (by Pierce Egan, 35 parts)
• Roderick Dhu, or The Warriors of Clan Alpine (c. 1870)
• Silver Axe: An Arabian Nights Story (12 parts)
• Tales of Brigands and Banditti (26 parts, 1865)
• Wat Tyler (by Pierce Egan)

The authorship of some of the above serials is open to dispute – Montague Summers, for example, wrote that Black Bess “was fathered and signed by Edward Viles but was written for him by J. F. Smith at (it is said) a fee of £3 10s per number”. An alternative theory is that Black Bess, and its sequel, were written by James Malcolm Rymer. The Blue Dwarf was credited to Lady Esther Hope, although there is another later version of the story, published by Hogarth House, attributed to Percy B. St. John, with some sources suggesting that Hope and St. John were the same person. Alternatively, it has been suggested that Esther Hope was actually W. Stephens Hayward.

What is certain, however, is that Edward Viles worked closely with Edward Harrison from 1864 onwards, with their relationship culminating in the partnership of Harrison & Viles.

Edward Harrison’s wife had died in the mid-1860s (her exact date of death has not been established), and on 15 June 1867, at the parish church of St. Giles, Camberwell, Edward re-married, his second wife being Eliza Ann Watson, a widow (born 28 January 1817, the daughter of James Streek, a tailor, and his wife Elizabeth). They subsequently moved to Kingsbury House, Valley Road, Shortlands, Kent, where the family remained until Edward’s death.

Kingsbury House was a substantial country residence, with nearly three acres of grounds which included “croquet and tennis lawns, large flower and kitchen gardens, ornamental lake, fernery, conservatories, large coach-house and stabling” (as advertised when it was put up for auction – London Standard, 26 February 1887. It had failed to sell at an earlier auction in October 1886). Harrison had acquired a collection of around 200 oil paintings, watercolours and engravings, which was auctioned at the same time as the house. He had also been a noted grower of orchids, building up a substantial collection which had been auctioned in four sales twelve months previously.

Eliza died on 11 August 1877, and his daughter Mary Ann died on 6 August 1881. Edward himself died, at 79 Adelaide Road, Haverstock Hill, Middlesex (although his home address was still Kingsbury House) on 13 December 1885, and was buried in Norwood Cemetery four days later. He left an estate worth £28,203 (£2.7 million in today’s terms). His executors were J. H. D. Jehring, Edward August (a banker’s clerk) and Edward Viles.

In his will, he bequeathed all his interest in his printing partnership of Harrison & Jehring to his son George. He left his leasehold interest in Merton House to his sons Edward and Frederick in equal shares as tenants-in-common, and he also left his business of wholesale newsagent and publisher, including the rights to The Young Ladies’ Journal and Black Bess, along with the management and control of all other publications with which he had a joint interest with Edward Viles, to Edward and Frederick in equal shares. He also stipulated that the future profits from The Young Ladies’ Journal were to be divided equally between Edward, Frederick and Kate (i.e. Catherine Hester) Burroughs, who had been the editor of the Journal for many years. (Catherine’s daughter-in-law, Kate, went on to marry Harold Bennett Viles, one of Edward Henry Viles’ sons, in 1899).

Edward Harrison’s home, Kingsbury House, was to be sold, and the proceeds, along with the cash he had held in a building society, his life assurance policy, and the rest of his personal estate (after gifts of jewellery etc. to his sons and cash gifts to his servants and all his employees) to be divided into six equal shares, two each to his daughters Kate and Louisa and one each to Edward and Frederick.

The various partnerships with which Edward Harrison been involved, with James Jehring and Edward Viles, therefore continued, although ultimately not altogether smoothly.

To be continued...

“FROM RAGS TO RITCHIES”

ALFRED RITCHIE OF RED LION COURT

By

Robert Kirkpatrick

Alfred Ritchie was a minor publisher of penny dreadfuls, boys’ story papers and other periodicals, whose primary business was that of a wholesale newsagent. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he remained solvent throughout his career (although he almost certainly lost money on some of his publishing activities), and he also seems to never to have fallen foul of the law.

He was born in Southwark, London in 1845, to Henry William Ritchie (a carpenter) and Jane Ritchie (née Phillips). He spent his early life in Southwark—at the time of the 1851 census his family, including his younger sister Rosa, was living at 31 Joiner Street, Southwark. Ten years later, they had moved to 6 Joiner Street, with Henry and Jane having had three more children. Henry remained there until his death in March 1884.

On 15 April 1866, at St. Mary’s Church, Lambeth, Alfred Ritchie married Amelia Harriet Hodder (born in 1848 in Southwark, her father, John Hodder, being a baker). At that time, Amelia was illiterate, and only able to make a mark on the marriage register, which rather oddly recorded Alfred’s trade as that of a Book Collector.

They went on to have 11 children: Alfred James (born 7 October 1866), Henry John (September 1868), Rosa Jane (19 September 1870), Lily Amelia (16 November 1872), Arthur Frederick (2 August 1874), William Edward (16 October 1876), Ernest George (October 1878), May Rachel (9 February 1881), Augustus Charles (10 March 1883), Frank Sidney (4 October 1885), and Herbert Percy (6 January 1887).  Some of the sons joined Alfred, and later Amelia, in the family business.

Soon after his marriage, Alfred moved to the Fleet Street area—the baptism record for Rosa (October 1870) show the family as living at 15 Wine Office Court (as does the 1871 census record), near the famous “Old Cheshire Cheese” pub, with Alfred described as a Bookseller.  However, to begin with he was probably working for someone else—he first appears (in the Post Office Directory) under his own name, as a newsagent, at 15 Wine Office Court in 1872, sharing the premises with a bookbinder and two printers.  In 1874, still at 15 Wine Office Court, his business was listed as a “Newsagent and general publisher”. 

Having said that, in the London Standard on 6 July 1871 an advertisement appeared which stated:

NEWSAGENTS, BOOKSELLERS, and STATIONERS (Wholesale) to be DISPOSED OF, doing £70 per week; same hands 20 years;  nine roomed house;  rent £35.  Lease, stock, fittings, and fixtures £250.  One month’s proof if required.  A. Ritchie, 15 Wine-office court, Fleet-street.

It seems highly unlikely that this was Ritchie’s own business, and more likely that he was acting as an agent for another company.

In 1875 he moved to 26 Red Lion Street, Holborn, and in 1878 to 6 Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, which remained his business address, shared with several other concerns, until 1892, when he expanded into no. 7.  (In 1891, he was shown as also having premises at 12 Crane Court, Fleet Street).  In the meantime, in 1876 he moved his family to 12 East Harding Street, off Fetter Lane, and in 1879 to 13 Calthorpe Street, off Gray’s Inn Road.  In 1885, he moved to 11 East Harding Street, from where his last two children were baptised, before moving to Brixton in 1890.

In 1879, he took Richard Wright as a partner, and his company became A. Ritchie & Co., Wholesale Newsagents and Publishers—this partnership was dissolved by mutual consent on 24 July 1888 (London Gazette, 27 July 1888).  The business name therefore resorted to A. Ritchie.

While Ritchie’s primary business was that of a wholesale newsagent he began a secondary career as a publisher around 1871, although he did not add “publisher” to the description of his business in the Post Office Directory until 1873/74.  Some sources date his earliest publications from the late 1860s—however, this is most unlikely as there is no evidence he was in business on his own at this time. 

He was best-known for the half dozen or so penny-part serials he published between the mid-1870s and the mid-1880s.  These included Crusoe Jack, the King of a Thousand Islands (by George Emmett—38 parts), Captain Tom Drake, or England’s Hearts of Oak (by William Emmett—74 parts, with a 3-part sequel, Admiral Tom), Union Jack, the British Boy Sailor (by George Emmett—29 parts), The Life and Adventures of Jack Rann, Sixteen-String Jack (19 parts), Tom King and Jonathan Wild, or The Days of Young Jack Sheppard (17 parts—re-issued as a complete volume with the title Tom King, the Daring Highwayman), and Under the Pirate Flag, or Adventures at Sea (60 parts).  At least one of these, Captain Tom Drake, was issued under the series name of Readable Books for Boys.  He published a re-issue of The New Newgate Calendar (in 50 numbers in 1889), and The History of Newgate: A Record of the Most Celebrated Trials.  He also issued a short run of 16 page, one penny abridgements of famous novels in the Paragon Library—these included Sweeney Todd, The Adventures of Roderick Random, The Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist and Sketches by Boz.

As a publisher of periodicals he enjoyed little success.  His first venture, The Illustrated Police Budget (not to be confused with a later and much more successful title published by Frank Shaw between 1893 and 1910), launched on 30 March 1873, with Ritchie as both publisher and printer, appears to have lasted for just one number.  In 1876 Ritchie took over the publication and printing of The Illustrated London Clipper (launched in 1874), which combined true crime reports with fiction—this became The London Clipper, Sport and Play in November 1876 and then Sport and Play in February 1877, running as such until its closure in April 1877.  His Sporting Miscellany lasted for one issue in May 1877, as did The Mechanics Museum—a school of art, science, invention and mechanics in November 1878, and The Young Ladies’ Herald (which included The Young ladies’ Novelette as a free gift) in October 1879.  No further Ritchie periodicals are recorded until 1889, when he launched The Printer, a quarterly magazine which seems to have lasted for just one number, with his last periodical appearing to be The Magazine Journal of News and General Literature, which ran from January 1892 to March 1893.

Two other Ritchie publications were The Red White and Blue Monster Song Book, a compilation of over 500 songs and recitations (presumably a revised edition of a title first published by John Berger in 1860);  and Charles Dibdin’s Songs.

Prior to this, Ritchie had dabbled in the field of boys’ story papers, no doubt inspired by the success of Edwin J. Brett and the Emmett brothers.  In late 1871 he launched Boys of Britain, which ran for just 20 numbers;  and in June 1877 he took over Sons of Britannia, which had been launched by Henry Lea in March 1870 and taken over by Charles Fox a year later.  In September 1877 Ritchie re-launched it as The Champion Journal for Boys of the United Kingdom, installing Henry Emmett as editor.  This ran for 147 numbers, after which it was sold to John Allingham who merged it with his Boy’s World in July 1880.  In May 1879 Ritchie launched the Boy’s Favourite, but this ran for only 10 numbers.

A handful of his publications were issued “for the Useful Literature Society”, such as Sixty Pounds a Year:  How to Make it, and How to Live on it (1877), and the Champion Journal for Boys—although there is nothing to suggest that the Society actually existed.

At the time of the 1891 census, Alfred Ritchie and his family, plus a servant, were living at Gordon Villa, 21 Barrington Road, Brixton, with Alfred still described as a “Newsagent and Publisher”—his two eldest sons, Alfred James and Henry John, then aged 24 and 22 respectively, were described as Newsagents.  Alfred Ritchie died at the family home on 18 June 1894, leaving an estate valued at £3,128 (£311,000 in today’s terms).  He did not name any executors to his will, and on 8 September 1894 Letters of Administration were granted to Amelia, who was the sole legatee, to whom he left the whole of his property and his business.  By that time Amelia appears to have moved the business to 5 Pemberton Row, Gough Square, where she began operating as “Mrs Amelia Ritchie, Wholesale Newsagent”. She also moved the family home to “Halescroft”, 108 Herne Hill, Surrey, where she died on 30 December 1902, leaving an estate worth £24,868 (over £2 million in today’s terms, indicating a huge leap in her fortunes from what had been humble beginnings). (The previous year’s census showed her living with Ernest, May and Augustus, plus a servant, with Ernest and Augustus described as Newsagents and Publishers alongside Amelia)

In her will she left her jewellery to her sons Arthur, William and Ernest and to her daughters, £600 each to her daughters and to all her sons, her furniture and household effects to her sons Henry, Augustus, Frank and Herbert, and the residue of her estate was bequeathed to Alfred.  Henry and her daughter Rosa were named as executors, although probate was granted solely to Rosa as Henry had died six years previously.

Alfred James Ritchie therefore took over the business, with the 1904 Post Office Directory showing him as a Newsagent at 5 Pemberton Row.  He remained there until his death in 1918.  (The business of A. Ritchie was still shown as occupying 5 Pemberton Row in 1919, but in 1920 the occupier was a wine retailer).  He had married Edith Saltmarsh at St. Bride’s in Fleet Street on 19 December 1895, the marriage record showing him as a newsagent living at 21 Great New Street, Fetter Lane.,  By 1901 he had moved to 123 Helix Road, Brixton, described in the census return as a “Newsagent’s Manager”, with he and Edith having had three children.  Ten years later, he had moved into his mother’s old home at 108 Herne Hill, having had four more children.  He died there on 28 October 1818, leaving an estate worth £11,498 (just under £0.5 million). 

Alfred James had presumably been running the business at 5 Pemberton Row with his brothers Arthur and William.  In the 1901 census both Arthur and their brother William were shown as living at 5 Pemberton Row, both described as “Newsagent’s Assistants”.  Arthur married Alice Castle later that year, but remained in Pemberton Row where, in the 1911 census, he was described as a “Wholesale Newsagent’s Manager”.  He died on 13 January 1914 in the City of London Mental Hospital at Stone, near Dartford, Kent. 

William married Florence Louise Hetherington in 1903, and in 1911 was living at 115 Fawnbroke Avenue, Herne Hill, working as a Wholesale Newsagent.  In 1913 or 1914, presumably in partnership with his brother Ernest, he established a rival wholesale newsagents business, Ritchie Brothers, at 108 Shoe Lane.  By 1918, this had expanded into nos. 106 and 107 Shoe Lane, and it remained there until its demise in 1937.  William subsequently moved to Boscombe, Dorset, where he died on 4 April 1948, leaving an estate worth £43,332 (£1,252,000).

Ernest had married Alice Maud Humm in 1904, and in 1911 was living at 66B Norwood Avenue, Herne Hill, described as a Wholesale Newsagent.  He retired to Dorking, Surrey, where he died on 13 September 1962, leaving £50,599 (£875,000).

Of Alfred Ritchie’s other sons, Henry John married Alice Eleanor Castle (born in 1871) in 1892 and moved to Boscombe, where he died on 10 October 1896, leaving an estate of just £59 (Alice later married Arthur Ritchie, although the marriage record gives her name as Alice Eleanor Castle rather than Alice Eleanor Ritchie);  Augustus Charles moved to Canada in 1903, where he married Emma Ellen Hartley in 1909 (with whom he had six children) and where he died in Vancouver on 5 December 1947;  Frank Sidney, after attending Thanet College, moved to Canada in 1906, returned to England in 1912, then moved to Sydney, Australia, where he married Ivy Masters in 1917, and later lived and worked as a planter and farmer in Thailand, Canada and New Zealand, where he died on 1 December 1950;  and finally Herbert Percy, who also attended Thanet College, emigrated to New Zealand in 1908—he married Mabel Aspinall in Samoa in 1915, and he died in New Zealand on 2 April 1960.