MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
underscores: _italics_.
[Illustration: THE RECONCILIATION:
OR, AS IT OUGHT TO BE
Reproduced from the cartoon in _Punch_, 15th March, 1845.]
MR. PUNCH'S HISTORY OF MODERN ENGLAND
By
CHARLES L. GRAVES
IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOL. I.--1841-1857
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1921
_Published by arrangement with the Proprietors of "Punch"_
PREFACE
The title of this work indicates at once its main source and its
limitations. The files of _Punch_ have been generally admitted to be a
valuable mine of information on the manners, customs, and fashions of
the Victorian age, and of the wealth of material thus provided liberal
use has been made. But it must not be forgotten that _Punch_ has always
been a London paper, and that in so far as English life is reflected in
his pages, London always comes first, though in this volume, and
especially during the "Hungry 'Forties," Lancashire comes a very good
second. For pictures of provincial society--such, for example, as that
given in _Cranford_ or in the novels of Trollope--or of life in
Edinburgh or Dublin, the chronicler of Victorian England must look
outside _Punch_. The "country cousin" is not forgotten, but for the most
part comes into view when he is on a visit to London, not when he is on
his native heath. Yet even with these deductions the amount of material
is embarrassingly rich. And this is due not only to the multiplicity of
subjects treated, but to the manner in which they were discussed. Of
_Punch_, in his early days at any rate, the criticism recently applied
to Victorian writers in general by a writer in _Blackwood_ holds good:
"They had a great deal to say, and they said it sometimes in too loud a
voice. Such was their virtue, to which their vice was akin. Their vice
was the vice of rhetoric. They fell to the temptation of many words.
They wrote too often as the tub-thumper speaks, without much
self-criticism and with a too fervent desire to be heard immediately and
at all costs." In the 'forties _Punch_ doubled the rôles of jester and
political pamphleteer, and in the latter capacity indulged in a great
deal of vehement partisan rhetoric. The loudest, the most passionate and
moving as well as the least judicial of his spokesmen was Douglas
Jerrold. The choice of dividing lines between periods must always be
somewhat artificial, but I was confirmed in my decision to end the first
volume with the year of the Indian Mutiny by the fact that it coincided
with the death of Douglas Jerrold, who from 1841 to 1857 had, more than
any other writer, been responsible for the Radical and humanitarian
views expressed in _Punch_.
My task would have been greatly simplified by the exclusion of politics
altogether. But to do that would have involved the neglect of what is,
after all, perhaps the most interesting and in many ways the most
honourable phase of _Punch's_ history, his championship of the poor and
oppressed, and his efforts to bridge the gap between the "Two
Nations"--the phrase which was used and justified in the finest passage
of Disraeli's _Sybil_, and which I have chosen as the title for the
first part of the present volume. To write a Social History of England
at any time without reference to the political background would be
difficult; it is practically impossible in a chronicle based on _Punch_
in the 'forties and 'fifties. In the second part I have endeavoured to
redress the balance. Here one recognizes the advantages of _Punch's_
London outlook in dealing with the Court and fashion and the acute
contrasts furnished between Mayfair on the one hand and the suburbs and
slums on the other.
No attempt has been made to represent _Punch_ as infallible whether as a
recorder, a critic, or a prophet. He was often wrong, unjust, and even
cruel--notably in his view of Peel and Lincoln, and in his conduct of
the "No Popery" crusade--though he seldom failed to make amends, even to
the extent of standing in a white sheet over Lincoln's grave. But the
majority of these confessions took the form of posthumous tributes. As
for the gradual cooling of _Punch's_ democratic ardour, that may be
attributed partly to the removal or remedying of abuses by legislation
and the education of public opinion; partly to the fact that newspapers
follow the rule of individuals, and tend to become more moderate as they
grow older. The great value of _Punch_ resides in the fact that it
provides us with a history of the Victorians _written by themselves_.
This is no guarantee of the accuracy of the facts recorded. We have had
painful proof in recent years that contemporary evidence, when based on
hearsay, even though written down red-hot in a diary, is, to put it
mildly, incapable of corroboration. But, as reflecting the nature and
mood of the writer, contemporary evidence is always interesting. My aim
has been to supply a critical commentary, and, where possible, to verify
or correct the statements or judgments recorded in _Punch_.
Acknowledgments of the various authorities consulted will be found in
the footnotes, but I should like to express my special indebtedness to
the _Dictionary of National Biography_; to the _New English Dictionary_;
to _The Political History of England_, by Sir Sidney Low and Mr. Lloyd
Sanders; to Mr. C.R. Fay's _Life and Labour in the Nineteenth Century_;
and, where the inner or domestic history of the paper is concerned, to
Mr. M. H. Spielmann's _History of Punch_.
The work of preparing this volume has been greatly lightened by the
encouragement and practical help of Mr. Philip Agnew, the managing
director, and Mr. Heather, the secretary, of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and
Co.; by Miss Berry's transcription of extracts; and, above all, by the
research, the advice and suggestions of Miss M. R. Walpole, the
assistant librarian of the Athenæum Club.
CHARLES L. GRAVES.
_A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._
CONTENTS
PART I
THE TWO NATIONS
_PUNCH_ AND THE PEOPLE
CHARTISM
MACHINERY AND MONEY-MAKING
EDUCATION
RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
FROM PEACE TO WAR
ENTR'ACTE
LONDON IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY