An Invitation…

The Romantic Illustrations Network will be holding an inaugural network event at the British Academy in London on the 6th June 2014. The event will consist of the following:

1.30pm: Welcome: Susan Matthews (Roehampton)/ Tate
1.40pm: William St Clair (London IES) ‘Towards a Political Economy of Book Illustration’
2.30pm: Brian Maidment (Liverpool John Moores) ‘Comic Illustration in the Marketplace 1820-1840’
3.20pm: Tea/coffee break
3.40pm: Workshop, ‘Digital Humanities and Romantic Illustration’ – Run by Anthony Mandal, Julia Thomas, and Michael Goodman (Cardiff) digitising visual artefacts – working with large image corpora – illustrations and the digital archive
5.00pm: Open Discussion

Entrance is free and everyone is welcome to attend. Space is limited though so make sure you complete the proforma saved here and return it to Dr Mary Shannon at the University of Roehampton (mary.shannon@roehampton.ac.uk) as soon as possible. A copy of the programme is available here.

I’ll be popping along too, so please say hello if you happen to bump into me in the queue for the tea trolley. See you there.

The Ackermann Ledgers: Redux

Some of you may recall the posts on Rudolph Ackermann’s ledgers which appeared on this blog last year and have perhaps been wondering what happened to my plan to transcribe and publish their contents. The Ackermann ledgers project kicked-off back in May 2013, when Dr James Baker was kind enough to share photographs of the original ledgers via his blog. James downloaded his pictures of the ledgers for the years 1812 to 1822 into a public folder in Dropbox, and then asked if there was anyone out there willing to lend a hand with the task of transcribing them into a digital format that would be easier to analyse. I volunteered, feeling that the chance to poke my nose through the records of one of Regency London’s most prestigious publishers was too good to miss, and immediately got cracking with the otherwise unenviable task of copying out thousands of individual financial transactions.

Things got off to a flying start and within a couple of weeks I was able to produce a short post setting out my initial thoughts on the first twelve months’ worth of data. The most striking feature of the ledgers at this stage being just how little information they appeared to contain which linked Ackermann directly to the production of large quantities of printed material. I found hundreds of transactions relating to the purchase of picture frames, paper and stationery, but hardly any which could be linked to coppersmiths, manufacturers of inks, typesetters etc. This, combined with the substantial regular payments that Ackermann was making to other printing firms, led me to question whether Ackermann’s business was primarily focused on the publishing and retail of prints, rather than their actual manufacture. At this point I received a letter from Ackermann historian John Ford, who was critical of any suggestion that Ackermann ran anything other than a substantial printing and publishing operation and rather sceptical of any attempt to divine conclusions about Ackermann’s business activities from the fragmentary evidence found within the ledgers. Taking John’s comments on board, I dashed off another post at the end of July last year and then got back to transcribing. It has taken a long longer than I originally anticipated, but I finally have three full years’ worth of data, covering the period June 1818 to May 1822, transcribed and felt it was about time we revisited the Ackermann ledgers.

But before we get onto the data itself, it seems sensible to pause for a moment to remind ourselves of what information the ledgers actually contain and the issues associated with their use as a form of historical source material. The ledgers are a record of the payments made to and from the account that Ackermann held with Coutts Bank in London. They are similar to a modern bank statement in some respects, with each transaction being recorded chronologically and accompanied by details of the exact amount paid and the name of any third party associated with the payment. They do not, however, provide a summary of the total balance of the account and therefore while it is possible to calculate whether Ackermann’s credits exceeded his debits, we still do not know how much money he actually had at any given moment in time.

There are several complicating factors one needs to consider when attempting to use the ledgers to draw conclusions about Ackermann’s publishing activities. Firstly, that Ackermann used the same account to manage a multifaceted business operation encompassing publishing, carriage-design, art dealership and a drawing school, as well as his regular household expenditures. It is therefore not possible to simply look at payments recorded in the ledgers and assume that they relate to the productions of printed materials. Secondly, that in most cases it is not possible to determine the specific nature of the transactions being made from the account. There is almost no information on the source of payments made by Ackermann into the account and while we are usually given the name of the merchant drawing bills, we have no idea what goods or services were actually being provided. Thirdly, that the names of third parties are not recorded with any degree of constancy and that we are therefore making assumptions, based on cross-referencing data against contemporary trade directories, about who was actually drawing money from the account. Fourthly, that the ledgers only record details of transactions carried out through Coutts Bank and are not a comprehensive list of his financial activities. It seems reasonable to assume that, like all businesses, Ackermann would have maintained a store of petty cash which would also have been used to meet expenses. The substantial amounts being paid into and taken out of the account with Coutts suggests that Ackermann probably used it for larger bills and standing orders only.

The data I have transcribed covers the period from June 1818 to May 1821. These were the years in which Ackermann was to publish two of his most memorable caricature-related works, in the form of the second and third installments of the Dr Syntax trilogy, as well as the less enduring Johnny Qae Genus. He also continued to publish prodigious quantities of other material, with an analysis of a bibliography of his surviving works indicating a preference for illustrated topographic surveys and instructional works for amateur artists. He was also to persevere with an attempt to bring the newly imported German technology of lithographic printing into mainstream adoption in Britain and presided over one of the first technical manuals on lithography in 1819. This eye for innovation also brought him commercial rewards on another front, when in 1818 he acquired the patent for a moveable carriage axel which was soon to become incorporated into the standard design of all of Britain’s horse-drawn vehicles. The ledgers seem to confirm that there were profitable years for Ackermann, with the balance of his account increasing by a notional net figure of roughly £3,000 between December 1818 and June 1820.

The ledgers also provide a lot of data on the types of goods and services Ackermann relied upon to run his business. His chief area of expenditure appears to have been letterpress printing, which by 1819 amounted to a total cost of almost £5,000 per annum. This was chiefly carried out by William Clowes, whose workshop in Northumberland Court, just off the Charing Cross end of the Strand, was located within a couple of minutes walk from the Repository of Arts. Clowes drew substantial bills on Ackermann’s account at least two or three times a month and these payments give some indication of the scale and intensity of Ackermann’s publishing operations as the evolved over time.

Paper was Ackermann’s next largest area of expenditure, with Key & Co of Abchurch Lane being his principle supplier. Large but infrequent payments were also made to two other City paper wholesalers, the firms of Williams & Co and Tipper & Co, who may have been called upon to provide additional materials at times of particularly high demand, or perhaps different grades of paper that were not readily available through Jonathan Key. Ackermann’s consumption of paper appears to have grown steadily over the three years covered by the ledgers, rising from £3,630 in 1818-19 to £4,659 by 1820-21.

Disaggregating the data relating to printing and paper and dropping them into a graph reveals that there may be a degree of correlation between the two types of payment. Of course, we have no way of knowing what publications that specific peaks of activity may relate to but it is interesting to note that the release of the complete edition of the Second Tour of Dr Syntax in September 1820 does seem to have corresponded with a significant leap in Ackermann’s printing costs.

Ackermann’s payments to the picture frame manufacturers Edward Peirce and John Jacques also raise some interesting questions about the nature of his business. The value of the bills paid to these two merchants during 1818-19 was almost double the amount Ackermann spent on book-binding and almost equalled the amount spent on paper over the same period. The payments than began to tail off during the 1819-20 and by 1820-1 had been reduced to roughly a third of the amount being spent two years earlier. This all seems to suggest that Ackermann was involved in some major project relating to the art gallery side of his business during late 1818 and early 1819, but I must admit that I have been unable to determine precisely what this could have been.

The ledgers also contain details of the payments that were made to some of the artists and writers in Ackermann’s circle. These were usually made on an intermittent basis and for comparatively small sums of money, suggesting the creative element may actually have been one of the lowest areas of expenditure associated with publishing in this period. The only exception to this rule was the author William Clowes, who received a regular salary of £33 a month from Ackermann from April 1820 onwards, and was paid substantially more than any other artist in Ackermann’s stable. Somewhat surprisingly, Thomas Rowlandson’s name appears only twice, in November 1819 and October 1820, when he received payments of £12 and £45 respectively. Other names that appear include those of J.S. Agar, J.G. Hamilton, Samuel Proutts, Thomas Unwins, J.B. Papworth and J. Cockburn.

So what are we to make of all this? The ledgers certainly allow us to draw some broad conclusions about the overall health of Ackermann’s business affairs and his place within the wider commercial networks of the metropolitan print trade. Further and more rigorous work would be required to determine whether the apparent correlation between paper and printing costs is sustained over a larger data set, and to understand the possible implications of this. A more detailed bibliographic study of Ackermann’s works, including information on advance subscriptions, and the publication dates of successive issues, may also allow us to pinpoint some of the financial transactions associated with specific books. However, this is all work for the future and for the time being anyone who would like to start their own research into the Ackermann ledgers is welcome to take a look at the data I have transcribed. Just click on the research archive link on the left and open the ledgers folder. Good luck!

The Man Whose Head Expanded – C.J. Grant’s Pygmy Revels

I strongly recommend that you get yourself over to the Lewis Walpole Library blog and check out their newly acquired sets of original pen and ink wash caricatures by Charles Jameson Grant. They were part of a set of four unrelated satirical drawings by Grant which was sold at Bonham’s last major sale of caricatures in summer 2010. The hammer price at the time being a cool £4,320.

This untitled group of four comic vignettes featuring tiny caricatures with large and grotesquely expressive heads is probably the pick of the bunch. It draws heavily upon a set of similar prints that Isaac Cruikshank and G.M. Woodward produced for S.W. Fores during the late 1790s and early 1800s, most notably the 24 plate Pigmy Revels [sic] series, and provides some indication of Grant’s detailed knowledge of the work of earlier caricaturists.

The image on the top right, which shows a British soldier being shot by a sniper in some form of Asiatic dress above the punning caption: “A bulletin”, is interesting as it not only highlights the penchant for dark and violent imagery that Grant would put to such good use in the Political Drama series, but also indicates that stereotypical figures associated with Britain’s colonial wars were beginning to eclipse the French as the traditional bogeymen of British satire by the early 1830s.

“A disappointed dinnerhunter” is also worth noting simply because it is so funny. It depicts a foppish but penniless young gentlemen who is trying to inveigle his way into the house of an acquaintance. “Is your master within?” he asks the stony-faced butler:

“No Mr Smallfeast, he’s gone out to dinner”.
“Oh dear me – well your mistress will do just the same…”
“& She’s out sir”.
“… How provoking. Well, I’ll sit down by the fire until they come home”.
“I’m sorry to tell you that’s gone out to” [sic].

“A Cunning-game at Westminster” – J.L. Marks versus the King

J.L. Marks, Content: or a Cunning Game at Westminster…, 1820. One of the many caricatures attacking King George IV and his mistress Lady Conyngham.

King George IV’s turbulent relationship with the caricaturists of the Regency era is well documented. George had adored prints as young man and placed substantial standing orders with several of London’s leading printshops, including those of William and Hannah Humphrey, James Bretherton and William Holland. His collecting interests were varied and encompassed everything from old masters and elegant art prints, down to caricatures and even pornography. George always bought in bulk, allowing his favourite sellers to make up folios, or even entire albums of prints which were then charged to his account every month. By 1809 his consumption of prints and other luxuries had become so conspicuous that it prompted one royal secretary to despair at the possibility of ever putting the royal finances in order, as “each quarter produces fresh bills for jewellery, prints, and various articles”.

But while George may have enjoyed looking at caricatures he was far less keen on appearing in them himself. He had been dogged by a constant stream of print-based mockery since his early twenties and by the start of the nineteenth-century was beginning to grow tired and angry at being the constant butt of the satirists jokes. His elevation to the position of Regent in 1811 further increased his sense of exasperation, as he was now monarch in all but name and firmly believed that the time had come for his subjects to treat him with a due degree of deference and respect. Unfortunately, it just so happened that the advent of the Regency also coincided with a severe recession which to drag on for the best part of a decade and reignite the fires of domestic political radicalism. There probably could not have been a worse time for a gorging, gambling, spendthrift like George to ascend to the throne and he was soon to become the subject of a hostile press campaign.

The opening salvos of this engagement were to be fired by a new generation of small prints shops that began to spring up in the City of London after 1810. These shops were often owned by reform-minded young men in their twenties and early thirties, who reflected the views of an expanding and morally resurgent middling class. The likes of John Fairburn, John Johnston, Thomas Dolby, M. Jones and William Hone, were far less dependent on fashionable patronage than their West End counterparts and could therefore afford to publish material which was far more offensive in its handling of establishment figures and the ruling classes. To them, the Prince’s profligacy and limitless sense of entitlement were symbolic of the wider failings of an unreformed political system and he was to be mercilessly pilloried in print for the best part of a decade, from the initial skirmishes over Lady Hertford’s influence in 1812, to the final showdown over Queen Caroline’s trial in 1820. 

George initially responded to this tidal wave of insolence by instructing his lawyers to prosecute the offending publishers. However, his plan soon unraveled when it became clear that a trial would require detailed examination and discussion of the subject matter in an open court. When the Solicitor General was sent a particularly offensive print by George Cruikshank for examination in 1812, he advised that although “this is a most indecent and imprudent print… it would require so much of difficult explanation in stating it as a libel that it does not appear to us advisable to make it the subject of a criminal prosecution.” In other words, a trial would merely draw attention to George’s indiscretions and invite further insults to the royal dignity. The fuming Regent was therefore left with little option but to dispatch his agents onto London’s streets with instructions to bribe caricaturists and printsellers not to publish images of him, or to buy up their stock as soon as it went on sale. The Prince’s secretary, Joseph Calkin, was instrumental in this process and brokered cash settlements with George and Isaac Robert Cruikshank, and the printseller John Johnston among others.

Eventually at least one caricaturist cottoned on to the fact that lucrative payments could be secured merely by threatening to publish material likely to offend royal sensibilities. John Lewis Marks was a relative newcomer to the print trade, having published his first known caricature in 1814 when he was still a teenager. He was an established caricaturist by the age of twenty-four, regularly producing plates for a variety of City and West End publishers, including Tegg, Fores, Johnston, and Jones, as well as publishing substantial quantities of material on his account. On 4th September 1820, Marks wrote to Calkin enclosing a prospectus of a broadside entitled Amoroso, King of Little Britain; or the Progress of Love. A Delicious Poem, a satire on George’s long-running affair with Lady Conyngham. “I intend to publish”, Marks stated boldly, “…as soon as the Plates are ready for it – Therefore if you will be kind enough to call on me to morrow morning, I shall be glad as I shall not advertise or send out the perspectives till I have your opinion on it”. Marks need hardly have bothered attempting to hide the purpose of his letter behind such a thin veil of deference, his message was clear: pay me, or I publish immediately. He was to repeat the process of soliciting Calkin’s “opinion” of his ideas for new caricatures on a number of occasions, before finally accepting a lump sum payment of £75 (approximately £2,000 in today’s terms) and undertaking “not to engrave or publish any caracature [sic] with the name of Cunningham introduced from the date hereof.”  True to form, Marks took the money and continued to produce caricatures against the King and Lady Conyngham anyway, some of which he published and some of which he again offered to sell to Calkin.

J.L. Marks, Preparatory sketch for the broadside ‘A Peep into the Cottage at Windsor’, c.1820. Marks would have sent early proofs such as this to Calkin along with notes asking for payment to ensure that the design was suppressed.