The Graphic
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
weekly illustrated
Illustration
An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
, first published on 4 December 1869 by William Luson Thomas's company Illustrated Newspapers Limited.
The Graphic's influence within the art world was immense, its many admirers included Vincent Van Gogh, and Hubert von Herkomer.
It continued to be published weekly under this title until 23 April 1932 and then changed title to The National Graphic between 28 April and 14 July 1932; it then ceased publication after 3,266 issues. From 1889 it also published The Daily Graphic.
Background
William Luson Thomas
William Luson Thomas was an English wood engraver and the founder of various British newspapers.-Biography:He worked as an engraver in Paris and also as an assistant to the well-known engraver William James Linton....
, a successful artist, wood engraver and social reformer. Earlier he, his brother and his brother-in-law had been persuaded to go to New York and assist in launching two newspapers, Picture Gallery and Republic. Thomas also had an engraving establishment of his own and, aided by a large staff, illustrated and engraved numerous standard works. Exasperated, even angered, by the unsympathetic treatment of artists by the world's most successful illustrated paper, The Illustrated London News, and having a good business sense Luson Thomas resolved to set up an opposition. His illustrated paper, despite being more expensive that its competition, became an immediate success.
Realization
When it began in 1869, the newspaper was printed in a rented house. By 1882, the company owned three buildings and twenty printing presses, and employed over 1,000 people. The first editor was Henry Sutherland EdwardsHenry Sutherland Edwards
Henry Sutherland Edwards was a British journalist.He was born in London, and educated in London and France. He was correspondent of The Times at the coronation of Alexander II of Russia, in the camp of the insurgents at Warsaw , and at German army headquarters during the Franco-Prussian War...
. A successful artist himself, founder Thomas recruited gifted artists including Luke Fildes
Luke Fildes
Sir Samuel Luke Fildes RA was an English painter and illustrator born at Liverpool and trained in the South Kensington and Royal Academy schools....
, Hubert von Herkomer
Hubert von Herkomer
Sir Hubert von Herkomer , British painter of German descent. He was also a pioneering film-director and a composer. Though a very successful portraitist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered for his earlier works that took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor...
, Frank Holl
Frank Holl
Frank Holl , English painter, was born in London, and was educated chiefly at University College School.He was a grandson of William Holl, an engraver of note, and the son of Francis Holl, ARA, another engraver, whose profession he originally intended to follow...
, and John Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...
.
The Graphic was published on a Saturday and its original cover price was sixpence, the Illustrated London News fivepence. In its first year, it described itself to advertisers as "a superior illustrated weekly newspaper, containing twenty-four pages imperial folio
Book size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
, printed on fine toned paper of beautiful quality, made expressly for the purpose and admirably adapted for the display of engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
s".
In addition to its home market the paper had subscribers all around the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. The Graphic covered home news and news from around the Empire, and devoted much attention to literature, arts, sciences, the fashionable world, sport, music and opera. Royal occasions and national celebrations and ceremonials were also given prominent coverage.
Artists
Artists employed on The Graphic and The Daily Graphic at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century included Helen AllinghamHelen Allingham
__NOEDITSECTION__Helen Allingham was an English watercolour painter and illustrator of the Victorian era.-Biography:...
, Alexander Boyd
Alexander Boyd
Alexander Boyd was a U.S. Representative from New York.Boyd moved to Middleburgh, Schoharie Co., and engaged in agricultural pursuits....
, Frank Brangwyn
Frank Brangwyn
Sir Frank William Brangwyn RA RWS RBA was an Anglo-Welsh artist, painter, water colourist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator, and progressive designer.- Biography :...
, Randolph Caldecott
Randolph Caldecott
Randolph Caldecott was a British artist and illustrator, born in Chester. The Caldecott Medal was named in his honor. He exercised his art chiefly in book illustrations. His abilities as an artist were promptly and generously recognized by the Royal Academy. Caldecott greatly influenced...
, James H. Dowd, Harry Furniss
Harry Furniss
Henry Furniss was an artist and illustrator, born in Wexford, Ireland. His father was English and his mother Scottish, Furniss identifying himself as English...
, Phil May, Ernest Prater
Ernest Prater
Ernest Prater was a noted English artist and book illustrator, notable also for his work as a war correspondent and reportage artist during the Anglo-Boer War.-Life and works:...
, Leonard Raven-Hill
Leonard Raven-Hill
Leonard Raven-Hill was an English artist, illustrator and cartoonist.He was born in Bath and educated at Bristol Grammar School and the Devon county school. He studied art at the Lambeth School of Art and then in Paris under MM. Bougereau and Aimé Morot...
, Sidney Sime
Sidney Sime
Sidney Sime was an English artist in the late Victorian and succeeding periods, mostly remembered for his fantastic and satirical artwork, especially his story illustrations for Irish author Lord Dunsany.-Early life:...
, Snaffles (Charles Johnson Payne)
Snaffles
Charles "Snaffles" Johnson Payne was an English painter best known for his humorous work.- Style and subject matter :Snaffles specialised in water colours and drawings sold as prints which, at least initially, were hand coloured by the artist and his sisters...
, George Stampa, Edmund Sullivan, Bert Thomas and F. H. Townsend
F. H. Townsend
F. H. Townsend illustrated the second edition of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre.He also illustrated A Child's History of England and Gryll Grange. As well as illustrating Nathanal Hawthorne's "House of the Seven Gables" in 1902.- External links :...
.
Writers
Writers for the paper included George EliotGeorge Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
, Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
, H. Rider Haggard
H. Rider Haggard
Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire...
and Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
. http://www.library.yale.edu/~mpowell/victorianper.html#graph
Malcolm Charles Salaman
Malcolm Charles Salaman
Malcolm Charles Salaman was an English author, journalist and critic. He was educated at University College School and at Owens College, Manchester. Although he had studied mechanical engineering for four years, he became a journalist, and edited two weekly papers...
was employed there from 1890 to 1899.
Weekly topics
- Topics of the Week: 12 paragraphs of newsNewsNews is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
coverage. - Amusements: A roundup of activities for the week, for the middle-class reader.
- Our illustrations: a summary of all the illustrations in the edition.
- Home: a summary of the news in Britain.
- ChurchAnglicanismAnglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
news - Legal: Trials and Cases of interest to the target reader.
- A weekly serialSerial (literature)In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
written by popular authors of the time, such as William Black (although this seemed to appear in the 1880s). - Book reviews
- A summary of the new developments in science.
- RuralRuralRural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
notes: information about the seasonSeasonA season is a division of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight.Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution...
and tips about crops, and other news concerning the rampant unrest of the farm labourers. - New Music: Reviews of the latest music and musicals.
- Obituaries: of Church leaders, factory owners, European Royalty, musicians and noteworthy Victorians.
- Sport: coverage of football and cricket (with W.G. Grace)
- Motoring: circa 1903-1908 Dorothy LevittDorothy LevittDorothy Elizabeth Levitt, was a motorina and sporting motoriste of the early 20th century. On 4 July 1903 she was reported as the first woman ever to compete in a motor race...
, The Fastest Girl on Earth, wrote a column on motoring from the point of view of 'A woman's right to motor'. A collection of her articles formed the basis of the book The Woman and the Car: A chatty little handbook for all women who motor or who want to motor in 1907/9.
There were at least three pages dedicated to advertising and it is interesting to see the obsession with hygiene
Hygiene
Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...
, with countless adverts for toothpaste and soap products (and 'miracle-cure' pills).
Innovations
The Graphic was designed to compete with the famous Illustrated London NewsIllustrated London News
The Illustrated London News was the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper; the first issue appeared on Saturday 14 May 1842. It was published weekly until 1971 and then increasingly less frequently until publication ceased in 2003.-History:...
(established in 1842), and became its most successful rival. Earlier rivals such as the Illustrated Times and the Pictorial Times had either failed to compete or been merged with the ILN. It appealed to the same middle-class readership, but The Graphic, as its name suggests, was intended to use images in a more vivid and striking way than the rather staid ILN. To this end it employed some of the most important artists of the day, making an immediate splash in 1869 with Houseless and Hungry, Luke Fildes' dramatic image of the shivering London poor seeking shelter in a workhouse.
It is much more difficult to produce and print illustrations than type. Improvements in process work and machinery at the end of the 1880s allowed Luson Thomas to realize a long cherished project, a daily illustrated paper.
The Daily Graphic
In 1889, Luson Thomas's company H. R. Baines and Co. commenced publication of the first daily illustrated newspaper in England, which was called The Daily Graphic. This is not to be confused with its American precursor of the same nameDaily Graphic
The Daily Graphic: An Illustrated Evening Newspaper was the first American newspaper with daily illustrations. It was founded in New York in 1873 by a firm of Canadian engravers and began publication in March of that year...
, which was the first American daily illustrated newspaper, founded in 1873.
Demise
Luson Thomas's seventh son George Holt ThomasGeorge Holt Thomas
George Holt Thomas aviation industry pioneer and newspaper proprietor. Holt Thomas founded, in 1911, the business which became Aircraft Manufacturing Company Limited or Airco....
was a director of the newspaper company and became general manager. Holt Thomas founded The Bystander and later Empire Illustrated before abandoning newspapers in 1906 and making a greater name for himself in the aviation industry.
On August 15, 1932 Time Magazine reported the name change to The National Graphic and editor William Comyns Beaumont
William Comyns Beaumont
William Comyns Beaumont, also known as Comyns Beaumont, was a British journalist, author, and lecturer. Beaumont was a staff writer for the Daily Mail and eventually became editor of the Bystander in 1903 and then The Graphic in 1932.Beaumont was an eccentric with several unusual beliefs, many of...
of The Bystander took over, replacing Alan John Bott.
Further reading
- Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals 1800-1900 (Canada: North Waterloo Academic Press, 2003)
- The Newspaper Press in Britain: an annotated bibliography (London:Mansell Publishing, 1987).
External links
- A history of The Graphic newspaper & staff, with image of the paper's engraving room in 1882.
- Publication dates (British Library website)
- Example of an engraving from an 1869 edition of The Graphic
- Images and text from The Graphic (of 1st February 1873)