14 Comic Cuts

14 Comic Cuts from Henry Hetherington's Odd Fellow 1839 and 1840.

Poor Man's Guardian

June 18, 1831. Voice of the People:

“Almost every large town has its Trades Herald, Workman’s Advocate, Workers’ Guardian, or some other equally zealous and useful publication, all strenuously advocating the necessity of duly rewarding labour, and of improvement in the conditions of the working classes.”

Saturday, July 9, 1831. Henry Hetherington, publisher. Quoted in The Poor Man’s Guardian:

“But if the Court is determined to confirm the conviction, then I here unhesitatingly declare, that I will set the law at defiance; - that law which the present Attorney-general himself declared was so odious - so iniquitous - so tyrannical , that it never could be carried into effect without holding “a dagger at the throat, and wresting the pen from the hand of every man who could write;” and yet the representative of the very man who used these words is now holding a dagger at my throat, but he shall strike it in before he wrests the pen from my hand, or prevents me from publishing a penny paper for the people every week, which I will do in defiance of this odious law, be the consequences what they may.”

Henry Hetherington was born in 1792 in Compton-street, Soho and apprenticed as a printer with the father of Luke Hansard. He found himself unemployed and went to Belgium where he worked at his trade for a spell before returning to London. His first published work was a pamphlet titled “Principles and Practice contrasted; or, a Peep into “the only true church of God upon earth,” commonly called Freethinking Christians” in 1828.

He helped found the Mechanic’s Institute and kept a shop at 13 Kingsgate-street, Holborn from whence he issued the first number of the Poor Man’s Guardian in 1831. He wrote a document that was the basis for the trade union “National Union of the Working Classes” which eventually led to the formation of Chartism.

With three convictions against him for publishing the Guardian he went into hiding in Manchester, but was taken by the Bow-street runners when he returned to London to visit his dying mother. He was lodged in Clerkenwell gaol for six months but managed to continue clandestine publishing of the newspaper. Over 500 men and women connected with the publishing of unstamped newspapers were gaoled including John Cleave and his wife who bravely carried on publishing when her husband was in gaol.

In 1833 Hetherington moved to the Strand where he published “The Destructive” and “The London Dispatch,” which reached a circulation of 25,000 copies sold weekly. When the government finally reduced the newspaper stamp to one penny (originally 4 pennies) in 1836 he published the “Twopenny Dispatch” and the “Odd-Fellow.” The “Odd-Fellow” was not the first paper to have political and gag cartoons on the front page but one of several which found the printing of cheap comic wood-cuts a great circulation booster. Cartoonists included Robert Seymour, William Harvey, and Kenny Meadows. Radical press-men John Cleave and Benjamin Davey Cousins also made great use of the front-page “comicalities.”

The “Twopenny Dispatch” promised an abundance of “Murders, Rapes, Suicides, Burnings, Maimings, Theatricals, Races, Pugilism, and all manner of moving accidents 'by flood and field'. In short, it will be stuffed with every sort of devilment that will make it sell.”

Hetherington was jailed three times for “blasphemy” and in his last will and testament specified a non-religious burial. He did not believe in “the popular notion of the existence of an All-mighty, All-wise, and Benevolent God -- possessing intelligence, and conscious of his own operations; because these attributes involve such a mass of absurdities and contradictions, so much cruelty and injustice on His part to the poor and destitute portion of His creatures, -- that, in my opinion, no rational reflecting mind can, after disinterested investigation, give credence to the existence of such a Being.”

Henry Hetherington died August 24, 1849 aged 57. G. J. Holyoke ended his graveyard oration saying that “when in future times the pilgrims of industry shall visit this shrine, they will exclaim --

‘HERE LIES A POOR MAN’S GUARDIAN!’

And poor men will drop tributary tears over his grave.”

*All comic cuts from the Odd Fellow

Comic Cuts 1839

The Odd Fellow was a weekly satirical newspaper which lasted from 5 Jan 1839 - 10 Dec 1842. The publisher was Henry Hetherington, a radical pressman famous for his Poor Man’s Guardian. Front-page political and gag cartoons by Robert Seymour, William Harvey, and Kenny Meadows were run weekly. See more HERE and HERE.

Literature of the Lower Orders

The Odd Fellow, 19 Nov 1842.

The Boy Jones

Few characters caught the Victorian imagination quite like "The Boy Jones," whose audacious escapades in Buckingham Palace made him an unlikely hero of newspapers, comic periodicals, cartoons and penny dreadfuls. The cartoon above was from the Odd Fellow, 24 April 1841. His entertaining story was told in All the Year Round on 5 July 1884.

Queen Victoria's Parrot

A series of related cartoons from The Odd Fellow Feb-June 1841

Comic Cuts

The British newspaper cartoon had its origins in the Sunday sporting newspaper Bell's Life in London and its supplemental Gallery of Comicalities. Bell's example was followed by the penny press in such publications as Cleave’s Gazette and Cousin’s Penny Satirist. The Odd Fellow was a weekly satirical newspaper which lasted from 5 Jan 1839 - 10 Dec 1842. The publisher was Henry Hetherington, a radical pressman famous for his Poor Man’s Guardian.

The cartoons appeared always on the front page of the Odd Fellow and were hung up in bookseller’s windows to feed the interest of passers-by. While today we would describe such fare as ‘single-panel cartoons,’ in 1839 these woodcut caricatures were known as ‘cuts,’ sometimes ‘comic cuts.’ The cartoons of the later Punch followed a well-worn trail, basing their publication on the penny Figaro in London, and their cartoons on the popular front-page caricatures of the penny press.

The Editor wrote a mission statement in the first issue of the Odd Fellow;

“We are determined to be an Odd Fellow: and, though it may appear strange to cut a friend, yet we are determined to give our readers a cut every week; but, at the same time, desire them to understand that we wish them to laugh at our designs. We shall not attempt to set the Thames on fire, as we intend to have no match.”

Each number was “illustrated by wood-cuts, characteristic of the ups and downs of the Political World and the manners, customs, and foibles of society.”

The earliest publications containing comic cuts I have found was The Original Comic Magazine: No. 1, With Seven Cuts which cost 6d and was published by another radical pressman, J. Duncombe in 1832. The famous penny blood publisher Edward Lloyd published a penny paper called The Weekly Penny Comic Magazine; or, Repertory of Wit and Humour, edited by Thomas Prest and featuring the cuts of the prolific C. J. Grant, also in 1832.

Comic cuts were soon being published on newspaper sized broadsheets with single and multi-panel cuts similar to the stories issued in comic albums by the Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer, although it is doubtful that many of the cartoonists for the radical press would have been familiar with his name or work.

One example of the broadsheets featuring comic cuts was Cleave’s Comicalities, of 1844, advertised as LOTS OF FUN FOR ALL CLASSES One Hundred and Fifty Comic and Humourous Cuts For One Penny. “Each number of this “gallery” is a full-sized newspaper sheet, filled with laughter-provoking caricatures and comic hits.” These popular collections were sold in Fleet-street, Manchester, Glasgow, and Birmingham.

The comic cuts tradition had a long life. Even after the innovations of the coloured American comic supplements with experiments in continuity and the use of word balloons, the old caption strip style continued to be in use into the early days of the 20th century and survives to this day in the form of the modern gag cartoon.

*I'm inclined to credit the illustrator of some of these cuts to C. J. Grant although his work was usually signed CJG. Note also the use of a recurring character in "Joey," a cove with an impressive hat.

The Odd Fellow

Front-page cartoon from The Odd Fellow,
6 March, 1841,
published by H. Hetherington.