Untold lives blog

From 1801, John Fenwick worked as a journalist and newspaper editor.  Noted as either purchasing or editing the radical newspaper the Albion in 1801, when its proprietor Allan MacLeod was in Newgate, and the Plow in 1802.  For the latter, Fenwick wanted to develop a network of regional correspondents.  The extent to which he was successful, or harnessed a news communications network to political purposes, is not known. In the years that followed, he occasionally travelled from London for work.

Report of a political meeting in Nottingham by an ‘able pen’, Statesman 31 May 1810 British Newspaper Archive

From April 1810, if not before, Fenwick likely worked on the radical daily newspaper the Statesman which continued to print while its proprietor and publisher Daniel Lovell was in Newgate in 1810-15.  Other than a letter from Charles Lamb to Barron Field in 1817, direct evidence that Fenwick edited the Statesman is scant.  Political meetings were occasionally reported by an unnamed ‘able pen’.  In October 1810, the Statesman published a warmly appreciative theatre review which focused exclusively on the Covent Garden debut of Eliza Ann Fenwick, John and Eliza Fenwick’s daughter.

Theatre review on the Covent Garden debut of Eliza Ann Fenwick, John and Eliza Fenwick’s daughter, Statesman 6 October 1810 - British Newspaper Archive

John Fenwick’s family relied partly on Eliza Fenwick’s income as a children’s writer, and neither parent had guaranteed earnings.  Fenwick was briefly subject to the rules of Fleet prison as a debtor.  The creditors named alongside his discharge in April 1808 confirmed that his unpaid bills comprised those of the school master Samuel Boucher Allen, who may have taught their son Orlando Fenwick; and the apothecary surgeon James Moss, of Somers Town where the Godwins lived, who might have prescribed for or been called to attend any member of the Fenwick family.  A John Fenwick published a well reviewed A new elementary grammar of the English language (1811), shortly after William Hazlitt completed A new and improved grammar of the English tongue (1810) for Godwin’s Juvenile Library.

Masthead for The London Moderator and National Adviser 14 October 1818 printed and published by Thomas James Fenwick - British Newspaper Archive

In March 1812, John Fenwick’s brother Thomas James Fenwick (1768-1850), a draper and slop seller in Limehouse, started a weekly newspaper The London Moderator and National Adviser which continued to print until 1823. Eliza Fenwick noted that

My brother has offered to pay me, if I will write, by the sheet, as I advance. He has bought printing premises types etc for a newspaper he has started, and as he must keep a certain number of men he wishes to purchase manuscripts to print.

It is likely that John Fenwick edited this weekly newspaper from 1812, and he may have continued to do so until 1823.  On the masthead, John Fenwick appeared as the proprietor of this newspaper in December 1818, before the paper was purchased in January 1819 by a John Twigg.

Masthead for The London Moderator and National Adviser 30 December 1818 printed and published by John Fenwick -  British Newspaper Archive

Fenwick briefly employed Charles Lamb to write for the Albion in the Summer of 1801.  Two decades later, in 1820, Charles Lamb lampooned his former employer as the ‘excellent tosspot’ Ralph Bigod, an impecunious republican newspaper editor.  And so commenced the laughable legend, which led the academic Lissa Paul to bluntly reinvent the hard to research John Fenwick as ‘a deadbeat’, in her 2019 biography of the novelist and children’s writer Eliza Fenwick.

CC-BY
Dr Charlotte MacKenzie
Independent researcher
@HistoryCornwall

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive - much free content, including The London Moderator and National Adviser and Statesman

John Fenwick political radical and writer (1)

Paul Ferris was born in 1766 at Fort St George. Madras, the son of Paul Ferris and Agnes Daniel.  He trained as a printer under James Augustus Hicky at his printing office in Calcutta and was one of Hicky’s assistants along with Archibald Thompson in the establishment of Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, India’s first English language newspaper, printed from 1780-1782.

18th-century printing works from A Picaud, La Veille de la Revolution, (Paris 1886).General Reference Collection 9225.l.12 BL flickr

In 1792 Ferris and Thompson founded their own newspaper, the Calcutta Morning Post, and were later joined by Morley Greenway as a co-owner.  In June 1818 they acquired the Calcutta Gazette, which had been in circulation since 1784 as the Government’s official news circular.  Shortly after this acquisition, the Calcutta Gazette ceased publication, with its last edition being printed on 29 September 1818.

Ferris also went on to establish his own printing press, Ferris & Co, and a bookselling business in Calcutta. By 1802 Ferris & Co were acting as the Calcutta agents for the Mission Press in Serampore.

In 1815 Ferris printed a new edition of John Miller’s The Tutor in English and Bengalee, first published in 1797.  It was published with an addendum stating that it had been ‘carefully revised and corrected by a professional pundit’.  The ‘professional pundit’ was Ganga Kishore Bhattacharji, a publisher of Bengali works who was just starting to work with Ferris. In 1816 Ferris & Co became the first printers to produce an illustrated book in Bengali, a narrative poem Annada Mangal written by Bharatchandra Ray in 1752-1753 and published by Ganga Kishore Bhattacharji.

Ganga Kishore would go on to publish numerous Bengali works with Ferris & Co including Ingreji byakaran (An English grammar), Daybhaeg (Hindu inheritance law) and Bidyasundar (a courtly romance), which was also the first Bengali book to be accompanied by woodcut illustrations.

Danish settlement of Serampore  viewed from the opposite bank of the River Hooghly - pen and ink drawing by Frederic Peter Layard (1842) British Library WD4359 British Library Online Gallery 

Paul Ferris died in Serampore on 29 June 1821 at the age of 55.  He had married Ann Esther Mullins in 1800 (she died in 1845 in Bombay), and the couple had seven children together.  He also had three children prior to his marriage, a son Paul and two daughters Frances and Ann.

Paul Ferris’s obituary is somewhat intriguing as it suggests that, despite the success of his various enterprises, he may have been struggling financially prior to his death: ‘Mr. P. Ferris - in his age 55 years - formerly Editor of Calcutta weekly newspaper, The Morning Post and owner of Calcutta Biblioteck-circulating Library and during the last years reduced to the necessity of keeping a sort of school at this place for Boys and Girls’.

The references in the obituary to the two other initiatives, the Calcutta Bibliotek circulating library and a school, are interesting as no other records of them appear to exist. There was however a Calcutta Library Society with its own lending library, which was established in 1818.  It is perhaps possible that this may be the ‘Bibliotek’ referred to in the obituary, but Ferris’s name does not appear in records as one of its founders.

Karen Stapley,
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
Paul Ferris, Memorial at Fort William Burial Ground
‘Glimpses of Serampore (1810-1820)’, published in Bengal Past and Present, Vol. 46 1933 Jul-Dec. British Library Shelfmark: Ac.8603
Hicky’s Bengal Gazette: PENN.NT330 NPL
Calcutta Morning Post: Asia, Pacific & Africa SM 32

In the winter of 1897, Reynolds's Newspaper launched a Christmas Fund for the sandwichmen who carried advertising boards through the streets of London.  This was the brainchild of its editor W. M. Thompson.  The paper appealed to its readers to contribute towards a treat for ‘one of the most hopeless classes in the community- the sandwichmen, or living advertisers’.  These men struggled to earn a few pennies every day to keep themselves out of the workhouse.  A good sum to provide a Christmas dinner for them could be accumulated if readers gave just a penny each.

A sandwichman carrying a board saying ‘Friendless, Hopeless, Penniless’ - Reynolds's Newspaper 26 December 1897 British Newspaper Archive

Donations arrived from all parts of the world.  The newspaper published lists of the donors’ names and the amount given, as well as letters sent from well-wishers.  Lord Rosebery gave £5 and Messrs Rothschild and Sons £21.  The Prince of Wales donated £10.  Queen Victoria sent her warm sympathy and was criticised by a widow from Clifton, Bristol, for not contributing: ‘I see the old girl of Windsor has not got it in her to give a mite, although she is a widow and praised up to the skies as such.  I think myself as good as her, although I have not had as many farthings as she has had pounds.  If she had to scrub and wash for twenty-five years, sixteen or eighteen hours a day, she would tell another tale.  Poor old men – it shows they have one good friend.  I wish I could give more, but it all tells up’.

A travelling showman sent 5 shillings for the noble effort ‘to let in a gleam of sunshine upon the clouded lives of this helpless class of the community’.  Children contributed small amounts from their money boxes. Eight-year-old Leonard Lumer sent four penny stamps ‘hoping they will have a good feed’.  H. S .Persse & Co donated a case of ten-year-old Galway whiskey, the same as supplied to the House of Commons.  Liptons gave tea, Cadbury sent cocoa.  New and second-hand clothes and boots were received.

Report on the Christmas treat - Reynolds's Newspaper 26 December 1897 British Newspaper Archive

The Boxing Day edition of Reynolds's Newspaper carried a report on the Christmas treat.  More than 600 sandwichmen, both young and old, had gathered at the Montpelier Music Hall where ‘ladies and gentlemen’ were eager to act as amateur waiters and general helpers.

The men were cheery and chatty, drowning out the sound of the grand piano.  ‘What life-histories and tragedies were there represented’ – some had been reduced from a comfortable life-style to tramping the streets advertising the playhouses they could not afford to enter.

After the meal, the men were given pipes of tobacco to smoke whilst enjoying the entertainment provided by music-hall artistes for free.  W. M. Thompson addressed them: ‘Friends, this is not a charitable gathering, it is a family party’.  Thompson hoped that even more could be done for the men the following year.

On leaving, each man was given a Christmas box of one shilling and a pair of socks.  Some also received a package of tea, and 200 bottles of whiskey were distributed.

Reynolds's Christmas Fund for sandwichmen continued into the 20th century.  The last reference which I can find to it in the British Newspaper Archive is in December 1915.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive - Reynolds's Newspaper (Strapline - 'Government of the People, by the People, for the People')

On Christmas Eve 1870, a newspaper called The Days’ Doings published pictures of Father Christmas as he was thought to appear to different groups of people.

‘The Physiognomy of Christmas - Father Christmas as he appears from several different points of view’ from The Days’ Doings 24 December 1870 British Newspaper Archive

Nine faces are drawn depicting how Father Christmas appears - 

To the Young
To men who can’t pay their bills
To the Lover
To the Grumpy
To the Puritanic
To the Jovial
To the Jaundiced
To the Gourmand
To Readers of Xmas Tales.

Seasonal Greetings from Untold Lives!

Politicians and journalists have a strange love/hate relationship.  A newspaper can bring down a politician (think The Guardian and MPs Jonathan Aitken and Neil Hamilton); equally a politician can spell trouble for a newspaper (see Tom Watson’s campaign against phone hacking).  However, they also depend on each other: politicians need to be in the public eye; newspapers need stories, ideally with sources close to the heart of government.  That relationship is important today but imagine how much more important it was in the 1930s and 1940s when, without the internet, no television to speak of, and really just one channel on the radio, the only truly mass media was newspapers, which sold in their millions every day across hundreds of local and national titles.  So the correspondence of a government minister and the owner of the country’s best selling newspaper could be expected to be rich with stories, gossip, and tips.  The letters of Brendan Bracken to Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, spanning more than 30 years and acquired by the  British Library in April 2022, do not disappoint.

Brendan Bracken by Elliott & Fry, bromide print, 13 January 1950. NPG x86452 © National Portrait Gallery, London

The two met around 1923, possibly through their mutual friend, Winston Churchill, and soon struck up a firm friendship.  They had much in common.  Bracken had a background in financial journalism.  He became an MP in 1929, was appointed Churchill’s Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1940 (Bracken was to be one of Churchill’s closest allies throughout the latter’s long political career), and Minister of Information the following year.  Beaverbrook was an MP from 1910 to 1916 before being created a baron, and had himself served as Minister of Information in 1918.  He had been involved in British newspapers since 1911, and was the owner of the Daily Express, which by 1937 was the country’s best selling newspaper and post-war became the world’s largest selling newspaper.  When Churchill appointed Beaverbrook Minister of Aircraft Production in 1940, (the first of three War Cabinet posts he was to hold), Bracken and Beaverbrook found their interests and politics merging at the very centre of power, with all the access to information and gossip that would bring.

William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook by Howard Coster, half-plate film negative, 1930 NPG x2803 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Bracken’s letters are full of behind the scenes rumour, news, and comment relating to politics and the press.  The letters touch on every major event and crisis of those turbulent times: the rise of Nazi Germany, appeasement, the Czechoslovak crisis, World War II, Churchill’s leadership, the reforming post-war Labour government, the economy, factions in both the Conservative and Labour parties, decolonisation and the end of empire, and the Suez crisis.  There is comment on all the major political figures of the period: Chamberlain, Churchill, Attlee, Dalton, Bevin, Bevan, Morrison, Butler, Macmillan, and Eden.  The letters also discuss major figures in diplomacy and international affairs, business and industry, the newspaper trade, Anglo-American relations, and post-war South Africa under its National Party government.

Bracken’s letters have a relaxed, informal, conversational style about them and should not just be seen as a source of political and press tittle tattle.  They can also be read as a record of a genuine friendship.   Real warmth comes through, and they contain the discussions of health, hospitality, birthday gifts, and visits to see each other that one would expect from letters between any two old friends.  These two old friends just so happened to be two of the most powerful people in the country!

Michael St John-McAlister
Western Manuscripts Cataloguing Manager

Further reading:
Add MS 89495 Letters from Brendan Bracken to Max Aitken, Baron Beaverbrook, 1925-1958
Richard Cockett, ed., My Dear Max: the Letters of Brendan Bracken to Lord Beaverbrook, 1925-1958 (London: The Historians’ Press, 1990)
Charles Edward Lysaght, Brendan Bracken (London: Allen Lane, 1979)
Charles Williams, Max Beaverbrook: Not Quite a Gentleman (London: Biteback, 2019)

Between 1788 and 1790, a sensational news story hit the headlines: a monster was stalking the streets of London.  The mysterious culprit picked women at random and stabbed them in the thigh or buttocks with a plethora of sharp objects, from knives to pins.  Sometimes he invited his victim to smell a small bunch of flowers and stabbed her with a weapon hidden in the blooms.  He always escaped before help arrived.  The press soon gave him the notorious nickname ‘The Monster’.

A Representation of Rhynick alias Renwick Williams, commonly called The Monster, coloured print collected by Sarah Sophia Banks, 1790 [BL L.R.301.h.3]

The attacks mounted up but the authorities had no leads.  The press reports grew more and more hysterical and, soon, it became a full-on public scare.

Sarah Sophia Banks, sister of botanist Sir Joseph Banks, was as swept up in the Monster hysteria as anyone.  She hoarded newspaper cuttings, prints, posters and notices about the attacks and stuck them in one of her many scrapbooks.

The London press refused to let the case drop, covering each sensational incident in gory detail.  They dropped heavy hints that the culprit must be an outsider – no doubt a foreigner – whipping up outrage and hostility despite having no evidence or proof of any kind.  Sensationalism of this kind has a tendency to drive sales.

The panic-stricken public formed vigilante groups to roam the streets of London and hunt for the Monster.  Rich businessmen and merchants promised hefty records for his capture.  They pasted up sensational posters across London alerting the public that a ‘bloodthirsty’, ‘dangerous’ monster was on the prowl and attacking young women.  One poster even suggested there might be more than one suspect: 'there is great reason to fear that more than one of those wretches infest the streets'.

The mass hysteria got so crazy that satirical posters sprung up across London in response.  Sarah Sophia Banks collected one with the over-the-top claim that the Monster 'attempted to cut up his own children' and was back in London to 'devour all editors of newspapers, book-sellers, engravers and publishers of satiric prints'.

Proto-police force The Bow Street Runners soon joined in the poster craze in their desperation to make an arrest.  Printed in red for maximum impact, one such poster encouraged servants 'to take notice if any man has staid at home without apparent cause, within these few days, during day light.  All washerwomen and servants should take notice of any blood on a man’s handkerchief'.

One Hundred Pounds Reward, poster collected by Sarah Sophia Banks, 1790 [BL LR.301.h.3]

The attacks continued for months before the Bow Street Runners finally made an arrest in 1790.

Their suspect was Rhynick Williams, a young unemployed man from Wales.  The mob threatened to lynch him when the Bow Street Runners brought him in for questioning.  Williams was eventually charged – although the judges struggled to pinpoint (excuse the pun) what exactly he should be charged with – and sentenced to six years in Newgate Prison.

Print and poster about The London Monster on display in the British Library’s Breaking the News exhibition

The attacks stopped after this.  Coincidence?  Who knows.

Historians today question whether Rhynick Williams really was the Monster.  Descriptions of the culprit varied wildly and Williams had an alibi for at least one of the attacks.  The case was further complicated by some reports of attacks being faked, and it was suggested at the time that there might be more than one person carrying out the attacks.

Some historians go even further: was there ever a Monster at all?  Or was the entire scare a case of mass hysteria and sensationalism on steroids?  We’ll probably never know.

Maddy Smith
Curator, Printed Heritage Collections

See these original posters about the London Monster in our Breaking the News exhibition, open until 21 August 2022. Explore 500 years of the news in Britain and discover more era-defining headlines and news stories.

As we wait for the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy, I thought I’d look for stories about the earliest matches between the two countries in the British Library’s newspaper collection.

The first match between the two sides took place in May 1933 in Rome.  The result was a 1-1 draw.  The Sunday Pictorial published this picture ‘received by photo-telephony’ of the England goalkeeper Hibbs punching out the ball.

British Newspaper Archive - With thanks to Reach PLC. Digitised by Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited. All rights reserved.

In November 1934, the Weekly Dispatch reported that touts were charging £2 2s for tickets for the forthcoming England-Italy match at Highbury when the cheapest official entry fee was 2s.  Touts were expected to ask prices as high as £5 for the best seats just before kick-off.  England won 3-2.

The next match was held in Milan in May 1939, resulting in a 2-2 draw.  The President of the Italian Federation of Football, Lt Gen Giorgio Vaccaro, expressed the belief that the tie would help to cement the friendly relationship between the two countries.

Italy and England played their first fixture after World War II in Turin in May 1948.  The score was 4-0 to England.

The teams played again in November 1949 at White Hart Lane: England won 2-0.  Two boys from City School Lincoln were suspended by their headmaster for taking a day off to attend the match.  Jeffrey Poole, 14, and Peter Wheatley, 13, had gone with a small group of choirboys led by the Rev R F Walters, curate of St Swithin’s Church.  Their parents and the curate believed that the punishment was too harsh.  Jeffrey and Peter had no regrets, showing reporters a treasured souvenir programme and sharing memories of an exciting trip to London.  The boys were allowed to return to school after their parents wrote to the head regretting their action and promising it would not happen again.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive (also available via Findmypast) e.g. Sunday Pictorial (listed under Sunday Mirror) 14 May 1933; Weekly Dispatch 11 November 1934; Sheffield Daily Telegraph 9 May 1939; Torbay Express and South Devon Echo 3 December 1949; Boston Guardian 14 December 1949.

Following on from our post celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Women’s FA Cup Final, this post delves back further into the history of the women’s game.

I was surprised to find a newspaper report of a women’s football match at Bath in October 1726.  ‘Yesterday a new and extraordinary Entertainment was set on Foot for the Divertion of our polite Gentry; and what should it be but a Match at Foot-Ball, play’d by six young Women of a Side, at the Bowling Green.’

Report of women’s football match- Ipswich Journal 8 October 1726 British Newspaper Archive

Women’s football featured at the birthday celebrations held in 1790 at Brighton for the Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of York.  There was a cricket match played by the Duke and ‘many gentlemen of rank and fashion’.  Other amusements included two 11-a-side football matches, one for the inhabitants of Brighton and the other for young women.  Each game had a prize of 5 guineas for the winning team.  There was also a ‘jingle-match’ won by John Baker who dressed up in bells and escaped capture by ten blindfolded people for half an hour.  Baker won a jacket, waistcoat, and gold-laced hat.

Another story which caught my eye was a report of a  football match held at Walton near Wetherby in Yorkshire in 1773.  The married gentlemen of Walton played the bachelors for a prize of 20 guineas.  A fiercely fought contest was waged for over an hour ‘with many falls and broken shinns given on each side’.  The wife of one of the married men was watching her husband being hard-pressed and decided to go to help him.  She was not intimidated by seeing him brought down by the superior strength of his antagonist, but went after the ball and secured victory for her husband’s team.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive (also available via Findmypast)  - Ipswich Journal 8 October 1726; Chester Chronicle 3 September 1790; Leeds Intelligencer 2 March 1773.