James Gillray’s signature on a letter dated 1800. BL Add Mss 27337.
By the middle of the 1790s James Gillray was becoming something of a celebrity among the affectedly art-conscious ranks of the British upper classes. The surviving remnants of his personal papers indicate that his postbag bulged with letters from amateur caricaturists and aspiring wits who desperately sought to have him translate their ideas into print. The following letter, written by Francis Hawksworth Esq. of Hickleton Hall in South Yorkshire, is indicative of the type of correspondence Gillray must have received from such people on a fairly regular basis. In this case Hawksworth goes a step further in actually requesting that Gillray touch up a plate he had already partially engraved himself and then send him copies of the finished prints. Gillray’s reply hasn’t survived but it seems hard to imagine that he would have turned down the request, particularly as Hawksworth he had offered to pay him a fee equivalent to that he would normally expect for engraving a new plate of his own design from scratch.
Nov. 18th 1799
Dear Sir,
Enclosed I send you five Guineas, which will cover your acc[oun]t for etching Sir George Sackville’s Monument. I have begun to try etching myself, but I am so defeated in the attempt that I must apply to you for a little assistance. Will you send me down a couple of needles and some wax, the same that you etch with yourself, and tell me how you lay it on… I have a great favour to ask of you. I have sent up by the mail coach of tonight a copper plate that has a very bad etching on it – some parts about the buggy are too strong, some parts by the horse are so weak as not to be seen in the impression. I would have destroy’d the plate immediately had not the face and figure of the man been so extraordinarily like him that I am sure I can never get such a resemblance again. Now I want you to cover the plate with wax… and touch it up for me. I would be very happy to give you the same price for doing this as if you were to etch a new one. If the lines of the face are too strong, you must burnish them down, but not by any means alter the likeness. Pray get the plate cut off at the bottom just above the letters and make a couple of lines at the sides of the plate. I know I have imposed upon your hands a piece of drudgery, but I really shall by greatly obliged if you will make an attempt to make it look decent. The sooner you send it me down and the better with twelve impressions not coloured [sic]. Give my complements to Mrs Humphreys [sic].
Your obed. servt. F. Hawksworth. Hickleton Hall near Doncaster.
P.S. I admire very much your etchings of Lord Moira, Mr Skeffington and Penn, they are vastly good indeed.
Add Mss 27337 ff 53.
Bold text represents underlining in the original.
The Printshop Window 
Thanks for this fascinating post. I wish the British Museum would make the Gillray personal papers accessible, so that folks like myself who live far away can see them. It would definitely help with further research on Gillray’s prints.
In this case, Hawksworth’s letter may shed light on two Gillray prints. In the first part of his letter he mentions sending five guineas as payment for a presumably already completed etching of Sir George Sackville’s (sic) monument. This probably refers to BM Satires 9423 [Tomb of Sir George Savile] which the British Museum dates around November 1799. The second part of his letter he asks Gillray to “touch up” a plate with a man, a horse, and buggy. This may explain the origin of another Gillray print: A Little Snuggerer (BM Satires 9771) which contains a man, a horse and buggy–clearly etched after an amateur (the horse is way too small for the buggy). Dorothy George had dated the print hesitantly as 1801, but this may refer to the later colored versions of Hawksworth’s non-colored print. And that may explain why the print carries no publication data.
Thanks for this interesting addendum Jim.
The possible link with ‘A Little Snuggerer’ is particularly intriguing. The absence of publication information from the surviving copies of the print does seem to suggest that the design was not produced to be sold over the counter. However it’s possible that Gillray retained some copies for his own use after the plate and prints were sent back to Yorkshire.
The letter also provides some indication of the longevity of the relationship between Hawksworth and Gillray and hints at the possible importance of the former as an artistic patron of the later. We know that Hawksworth was still commissioning caricatures from Gillray a decade after this letter was written (i.e. ‘The Orange Jumper’) and it’s possible that he may have had a hand in the creation of other prints which were produced in the intervening period.