My father had much of the pioneer instinct about him: his interest in any invention or process that concerned his business was immense. He was in this respect the product of the Birkbeck Institute and the Penny Magazine.
A man of ideas himself, he was most patient and attentive to inventors: these he encouraged by his mere good nature, but as may be easily imagined he encountered a number of harpies from whom he suffered loss. He would seem, however, to have benefited by experience, for one day an inventor called and I tried to stall him off but he was obdurate in wishing to see my father, and as he had an introduction I let him through, but went with him as a sort of “caveat”. My father with old time courtesy insisted on his visitor being comfortably seated and asked what he could do for him. The inventor then proceeded to unfold his scheme which was of the wild-cat order. At the finish my father with a voice suggestive of emotion exclaimed, “And the inventor I understand is dead!”, “No sir, I am the inventor”, was the reply, and with the words, “Then I am afraid we cannot do any business for I never buy an invention till the inventor is dead”, my father closed the interview.
This form of reply, rather more austere that I expected, arose from the fact that my father had recently given a man a moderate sum for what was little more than a happy thought and within a few days notwithstanding agreement to the contrary he was vending his nostrum to competitors in the trade.
The business which as already stated had its headquarters at No.1 Chandos Street, Covent Garden, was conducted under the name of Vincent Brooks until 1868 when financially assisted by the late Mr Henry Graves the Printseller of Pall Mall. He bought the celebrated business of Day & Son, Limited, that had gone into liquidation, and although without a partner for many years, traded under the name Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, a style that has been maintained ever since, and which, with the addition of the word Limited, is still the imprint of my firm.
I have mentioned the interesting state of affairs existing when I joined the business and I will no refer to this point in some detail. Messrs Thomas Agnew & Son having in contemplation the reproduction of a series of painting by John Leech, by enlargement of subjects that had appeared in “Punch”, my father was consulted, with others, and it was decided to have a limited competition of the three forms most likely to make a success of the enterprise, viz. Messrs Day & Son, Messrs Hanhart Bros. , and Vincent Brooks. The subject selected was Jorrocks who, as will be recollected by many, is represented as standing on a bank and tugging at his horse’s reins saying, “Come hup I say, you ugly brute.”
My father’s reproduction was held to be the most satisfactory: it was the work of his then leading Chromo-lithographic Artist, William B. Bunney, who had been one of his earliest apprentices and was a member of a family of Artists of some distinction.
This success was of considerable importance for it secured an abundance of work of this class which extended over ten years, for about twenty-four subjects were executed forming a first and second series and there were many reprints.
Messrs Agnew in their introductions dwelt on the future that the idea of the paintings being reproductions on Punch blocks should be maintained, and after my father suggested that to this end a good impression on white paper should be pulled from the original block and that this should be sent to Leech who with Chinese white should obliterate lines he did not require and reduce those that he wanted to be only slightly conspicuous. This amended pull he advised should be enlarged to about five times the scale, giving twenty-five times the area, be pulled upon the printer’s canvas, and having been duly fixed, put on a strainer for the Artist to work upon. This plan was adopted, the enlargement being made by Sir Henry James recently invented photo-litho process: this course was pursued in regard to the whole of the two series, and I remember in my early days at the office on several occasions going up to Leech’s house, taking with me an enlargement for a new painting. On one occasion I had spelt his new “Leitch” on the parcel and he said “oh you must not think of me as Leech with the itch.”
This description as to the making of the paintings may not be good news to the present owners of the pictures but will not distract from the real pleasure that their possession affords, and it may quite conceivably have been from this course that they were not publicly exhibited at the time. I am not quite sure whether the “Jorrocks” subject was done in this way, but if it was it would have given my father some advantage in the competition, as he would naturally use the enlargement as the basis of his lithographic work and thus be on the high road to a fac-simile.
It may be mentioned that I used the same idea as recently as the Boer War when by permission of Messrs Bradbury Agnew I enlarged Tenniel’s “Fight to a Finish” cartoon in the same way and, by adding a few printings, produced at a very small cost a war cartoon that had a large sale.
Beyond the great interest that he was taking in photo-lithography my father was at the time interested in three patents: one was for adding lettering to engraved maps with the aid of steel punches that had been invented by a Mr Lewis Becker the son of an engraver whose name appears on the title and frontispiece of Dickens’ “Chimes”. The younger Becker was an interesting man little inclined to the drudgery of engraving and therefore led to find alternative methods to get through his work.
The inventor was generally called Lieutenant Becker for he was the second in command of a private fire-brigade kept up by a certain Mr Hodge a distiller of Lambeth. This Brigade was very popular and effected many “stops”, and, as may be imagined, the regular Fire Service was very jealous of the notice this volunteer’s force received from the press. Hodge in return for Becker’s devotion to his brigade gave him financial aid in perfecting his invention, and the valuable machinery that resulted was at work at Chandos Street when I first joined the business but although it was a very useful system, and stamped on soft steel that was subsequently hardened with great sharpness and precision, nobody but Becker seemed to be able to work it and his application not being remarkable the plant soon fell into disuse and was returned to Mr. Hodge who had spent so much over it. Those interested in the matter will find excellent specimens of this work in Breton’s Dictionary where lions, tigers, crocodiles, etc. , are shown in their habitat with the aid of such punches.
Another recent invention was Gordon’s India-rubber pentagraph [sic] for enlarging or reducing block lithographs, and copper or steel plates. Impressions were pulled from the original surfaces on a sheet of rubber which, when reduction was required was already extended and allowed to contract under mechanical control, but when enlargement was the object the rubber was used in its natural condition and then placed in the apparatus for extension. Much beautiful work was being done by this method, especially two miniature editions for Messrs Longman, Green & Co.: the first was Macaulay’s “Laws of Ancient Rome” with illustrations mostly from the antique by George Scharf Junr. that had been engraved on wood at great expense; the second was Moore “Melodies” with illustrations by Maclise that had been very beautifully engraved on steel. This method is not at the present time much used for such work, having been superseded by improved methods of photo lithography, but in France and Germany, aided by improvements in the mechanical side of the process, it is used for the reduction of a whole set of colour stones with such precision that they fit as accurately in the reduced size as in the original.
By far the most interesting and abiding matter that had been recently taken up was the invention known as Willis’ Aniline Process of Photographic Reproduction, and it had the advantage of bringing me into contact with one of the most charming natures that I have met.
Mr William Willis, the father of the present William Willis the inventor of the Platinotype Process, was a Quaker artist and engraver of considerable ability, living at the time of his invention in Birmingham. Willis’s idea was to provide architects and engravers with a method of reproducing their tracings in a positive form, that is to say with black line on a white background, where that was the character of the original, the only method previously existing being the well-known Ferro-Prussiale Process, that had been invented by Herschell and gave white lines on a blue background from an original with black lines and was therefore what is called a negative process. The method comprised the development of a bichromate of potash image by vapour of aniline and gave very excellent reproductions of washes of Indian ink and a fair reproduction in monochrome of colour values.
The system was worked by my father and the inventor during the whole time of its patent career of fourteen years at St. Mary Cray, a village in Kent where we were living when I left school. William Willis was a persona grata, alike with Churchmen and Nonconformists, and formed a much needed link between them. Our Vicar a delightful cleric named Andrew Welch, whom I am glad to know is still living as Rector of Woodchurch near Ashford, used to describe Willis as “not too much a Quaker but just Quaker enough,” an excellent definition, for he was ever full of good works which were carried out in the quietist possible way and yet in no degree narrow-minded.
As an example I may state that in the intervals of pressure he would at once set his boys, who were chiefly the sons of farm labourers, some educational task, and there are those on each side of the Atlantic who have either directly or through their fathers benefited by his desire to impart knowledge.
William Willis’ name will come up again in this chronicle for he had come into my life for good in more many ways than one: but I have said all that is now necessary in regard to the beginnings of his process in this rather technical chapter which may perhaps have become already somewhat wearisome to readers not interested in printing matters.
Having acquired in about 1864 certain plant and premises in High Street Lambeth which had been the property of Messrs J.S.Hodson & Son, my father embarked in letterpress and colour block printing, and the branch was placed under the direction of my elder brother. The principal customers were Mr Edward Whymper, who though by trade a Wood Engraver was subsequently much better known as a Mountaineer and Lecturer, and that friend of my early days, Mr. S. O. Beeton the pioneer of special publishing for boys and the father of the Mr. Mayson Beeton now deforesting Newfoundland in order that the Daily Mail may never by any shortage of paper be absent from our breakfast table, in an incident that by some would be looked upon as the end of all things.
Mr Whymper’s work at the time chiefly consisted in coloured illustrations for the frontispieces of The Leisure Hour and Sunday at Home, published by the Religious Tract Society, for which he used to buy first rate drawings by Sir John Gilbert, James Mahoney, and others. Mahony was a protégé of my father for James Mahony senior, an Irishman as the name suggests, had been with him in business as an Artist for many years and was much loved by all his colleagues. The elder Mahoney died early leaving a widow and young family quite unprovided for.
In due time both the boys were apprenticed as Lithographic Artists, but the elder was evidently fitted for higher work and was released from his indenture that he might follow his bent for original work by joining Mr Edward Whymper’s staff of Art Workers at Canterbury Place, Lambeth.
“Jim” Mahony as we all called our Artist friend, was of a most excitable disposition and as might be expected from his nationality was an ardent supporter of France in the Franco-German War. He formed one of our party at the Alhambra in the autumn of 1870 when the chief feature in the entertainment was the singing of the national song of France and Germany, and his enthusiastic methods led to a free fight of considerable dimensions with the result that we were all evicted from the hall, an indignity that our Artist friend was little inclined to endure.
Mahony died young but left some good work behind him including the illustrations to “Scrambles among the Alps” in which Whymper so ably describes his Matterhorn and other adventures in Switzerland. I have heard no less an authority on the illustrator’s Art than Mr. Joseph Pennell single out Mahony for special approval, and have seen his work in the form of lantern slides, when it very well passed through the supreme test of enlargement. I find that Mr Pennell speaks of Mahony’s work with approbation in his work on Modern Illustrations and I notice by Algernon Graves’ Catalogue that Mahony exhibited six works at the Royal Academy, the last year in which his name appears being 1877.
Perhaps the most interesting work going on at Lambeth at the time was the printing of many of the Baxter subjects, but as that is a topic in which much interest is being taken at the present time, I shall deal with it in a special chapter, concluding this one with a couple of youthful experiences that may be of interest.
On arriving at Chandos Street one morning my father and I were very pleased to receive among the letters a Command from the Queen that our Mr Rudofsky should execute a lithographic reproduction of a portrait of Mr John Brown in Highland dress that had been painted by Mr Kenneth M’Cleary R.B.A. [Kenneth Macleay, R.S.A.] Rudofsky then the principal portrait artist of the firm was a Pole, and had already produced a portrait of Mr Archibald Brown that had met with Their Majesties’ approval: he was of a distinctly Bohemian tendency, and getting from time to time into every description of “Scrape”, he was at this period in Whitecross Street Prison for debt. My father at once decided to send me with the Command and a covering letter to the Governor of the prison to see what could be done to comply with the Queen’s behest. The Governor received me quite kindly and seemed to be rather tickled with the novelty of the situation though he did not see his way to part with his prisoner even under suitable guarantees, and asked whether the piece of work could be done there. I replied that I thought it could, if reasonable conditions could be provided, and he then accompanied me through the prison to the part where the artist was confined, We found “Ru” engaged on a frugal meal that he and a few others had sent out for.
My recollection of the scene and visit are a little hazy but the general impression on my mind was that to those who were inclined to make the best of all conditions of life, the situation was not very distressing as long as they were not totally without resources, and that to those who were not unwilling to be fleeced by the harpies around them, the March wind was considerably tempered.
The water-colour drawing and the necessary lithographs stone and drawing materials were shortly after sent to the prison and a portrait produced that secured the approval of Her Majesty and Mr Brown – what either would have said had they known the conditions under which it had been produced I cannot imagine, but it would be interesting to know whether Sovereign or subject would have been the more vexed or whether Her Majesty would have been annoyed at all or simply amused.
Shortly after this my father who was not very systematic remembered one morning at about ten o’clock that a dispute he had with a man was to be settled at the Sheriffs’ Court, Guildhall that very day. On this occasion he was the defendant. A pressmaker having delivered some goods too late for shipment, it had been found necessary to buy them elsewhere, so the goods when tendered were declined.
I was hurriedly given the summons, told something of the case and was to do the best I could, as the result would not be very serious if I lost. On arriving at the Court I was surprised to find that the plaintiff was to be represented by a solicitor of the touting sort. The Judge was Commissioner Kerr, and the lawyer in opening his case referred to a letter my father had written and began to suggest its contents, on which I exclaimed “Can we not have this letter your Honour?” to which came the reply, “What’s this? What’s this?” and I explained that this description of what it contained was not evidence, that if it could not be produced I should have been told to produce my copy which in all probability existed.
The Commissioner sat with eyes wide open seeming prepared to give me considerable latitude and on my finishing said to the plaintiff’s representative with a merry laugh, “I think the boy has got you, sir”. The judge then proceeded to ask me where I had got my law and I told him at school, and that I had always been taught that a Court was entitled to the best evidence it could get: “and a very good school too” was the reply. This incident has stood me in good stead as I always received marked attention from the late Commissioner when appearing before him as an expert witness as I have frequently done.
It may be mentioned that I won this my first County Court Case and my stock went up considerably at the office.
It was in 1866 that I first saw the University Boat Race. I spent the preceding night in the Strand over the well known cutlery shop looking up Bedford Street that was then the headquarters of Messrs John Weiss & Son, the Surgical Instrument Makers. It was always looked upon as one of the sights of the street for it had in its window a knife with a thousand blades that had been a source of attraction at the First Exhibition, and a vast blade with a horse for a handle which in earlier days had suggested to me that the blade was going off with the horse as a revenge for the “cow dish having run away with the spoon”.
I was that evening the guest of Mr Foveaux, a partner in the firm mentioned, who being of French origin had views not in accordance with the middle class conventions of the time, so that accompanied by Mrs Foveaux we went to the newly opened Oxford Music Hall and, under the chairmanship of Mr Sam Adams, we listened to “The Charming Miss Annie Adams”, to adopt the words of the programme, and Mr Jolly Nash. By the time I had supped off Welsh Rarebit, a delicacy much in vogue on such occasions, I felt that I was fully launched on London Life.
I made an early start alone for the Hammersmith the following morning, found my way on to the Bridge and was foolish enough to take up a position on its chain on the upper side and Surrey end of the structure. I little knew at the time the risk to which I was exposing myself for subsequent comers also followed my example and kept pushing me further up the chain till I reached the eminence for which I was little prepared. Fortunately the vibration caused by the traffic on the Bridge gave me warning of how firmly I should have to grip the steel chain when as I imagined the crowd would rush from the lower to the upper side of the structure in the desire to see as much of the race as possible. My expectations were very fully realised for the swaying of the Bridge was fearful as the crowd passed under; and a very wise thing was done when the use of the Bridge except for moving traffic was prohibited on similar occasions by the Police Regulation.
From my lofty position I was much amused by the proceeding of Cockney sportsmen on horseback who careered along to the obvious risk of the crowd in general. On my return to the office I found that three of our Artists had also seen the Race, Rudofsky who had been released from “durance vile”, Armstrong, afterwards a leading lithographer in Boston U.S.A, and James Lewis who became a gifted water colour Artist as well as a chromo lithographer of distinction, and remained with my firm for very many years. I enquired of Rudofsky how he had enjoyed himself and his reply was characteristic, “immense! We have been by horseback, by train back and by bus back!”
When after these experiences I got back to my piously conducted home at St. Mary Cray my outlook seemed different. My participation in morning and evening prayer was not less regular, but there was less concentration on the words read by my father, and I fear that it must be said that “my life’s medley” had commenced.
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