Charles Hindley.
John and James Catnach.—It will be seen by a correspondence in another page that Mr. Charles Hindley, of Brighton, is preparing for publication the “Life and Times of James Catnach,” and he respectfully solicits from our readers any facts and scraps they may be possessed of, also the loan of any letters or books suitable for the extention of the life of the celebrated and withal eccentric printer, who, although a native of Alnwick, settled in London, and occupied a peculiar position for upwards of a quarter of a century in the Seven Dials district. We trust that our correspondent may be enabled to add to his all ready large stock of material in hand a few more items, by the publication of his letter in our columns. Mr. Hindley’s work, will, it is expected, be published by Messrs. Reeves and Turner, of the Strand, London, during the coming autumn.
The above letter to the Alnwick Journal was the means of obtaining another valuable correspondent—Mr. George H. Thompson, also of Alnwick, who volunteered his services to aid and assist, to the best of his time and ability, in supplying all the information he possessed or could glean from his friends and acquaintances in the good old borough of Alnwick, or the county at large. And inter alia copied out verbatim from the Parish Register of Baptisms in St. Michael’s Church all the entries in connection with the family of John and Mary Catnach and which will be found in extenso at pages 2-3 of this work.
Mr. George Skelly and Mr. G. H. Thompson are fortunate by their residence in Alnwick in having had the acquaintance and friendship of the late Mr. Mark Smith—James Catnach’s fellow apprentice, Mr. Thomas Robertson, Mr. Tate, the local historian, and several other Alnwick-folk. And they have made the best possible use of the circumstance to supply us with information on the subject of our enquiry.
Recently Mr. Geo. Skelly has forwarded to us an original trade invoice of John Catnach of which we here append a fac-simile copy:—
We have now brought up the history of our pursuit of knowledge to the eve of the publication of the Life and Times of James Catnach—late of Seven Dials, Ballad-monger—which was first announced in 1878 in the manner following.
Ye Life of Jemmy Catnach.