“She is gone! sweet Charlotte’s gone!
Gone to the silent bourne;
She is gone, She’s gone, for evermore,—
She never can return.
She is gone with her joy—her darling Boy,
The son of Leopold, blythe and keen;
She Died the sixth of November,
Eighteen hundred and seventeen.”
The year 1818, proved a disastrous one to Catnach, as in addition to the extra burden entailed on him in family matters, he had, in the way of his trade, printed a street-paper reflecting on the private character and on the materials used in the manufacture of the sausages as sold by the pork butchers of the Drury-lane quarter in general, and particularly by Mr. Pizzey, a tradesman carrying on business in Blackmore-street, Clare-market, who caused him to be summoned to the Bow-street Police Court to answer the charge of malicious libel, when he was committed to take his trial at the next Clerkenwell Sessions, by Sir Richard Burnie, where he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in the House of Correction, at Clerkenwell, in the County of Middlesex.
During Catnach’s incarceration his mother and sisters, aided by one of the Seven Dials bards, carried on the business, writing and printing off all the squibs and street ballads that were required. In the meanwhile the Johnny Pitts’ crew printed several lampoons on “Jemmy Catnach.” Subjoined is a portion of one of them that has reached us, vivâ voce, of the aforesaid—John Morgan—professional street-ballad writer:—
“Jemmy Catnach printed a quarter sheet—
It was called in lanes and passages,
That Pizzy the butcher, had dead bodies chopped,
And made them into sausages.
“Poor Pizzey was in an awful mess,
And looked the colour of cinders—
A crowd assembled from far and near,
And they smashed in all his windows.
“Now Jemmy Catnach’s gone to prison,
And what’s he gone to prison for?
For printing a libel against Mr. Pizzey,
Which was sung from door to door.
“Six months in quod old Jemmy’s got,
Because he a shocking tale had started,
About Mr. Pizzey who dealt in sausages
In Blackmore-street, Clare-market.”
Misfortunes are said never to come singly, and so it proved to the Catnach family, for while Jemmy was doing his six months in the House of Correction at Clerkenwell, we find in the pages of the Weekly Dispatch for January 3, 1819, and under Police Intelligence, as follows:—
Circulating False News.—At Bow-street, on Wednesday, Thomas Love and Thomas Howlett, were brought to the office by one of the patrole, charged with making a disturbance in Chelsea, in the morning, by blowing of horns, with a tremendous noise, and each of them after blowing his horn, was heard to announce with all the vociferation the strength of his lungs would admit of:—“The full, true, and particular account of the most cruel and barbarous murder of Mr. Ellis, of Sloane-street, which took place, last night, in the Five Fields, Chelsea.” The patrole, knowing that no such horrid event had taken place, had them taken up. The papers in their possession, which they had been selling at a halfpenny each, were seized and brought to the office with the prisoners. But what is most extraordinary, the contents of the papers had no reference whatever to Mr. Ellis! They were headed in large letters, “A Horrid Murder,” and the murder was stated to have been committed at South-green, near Dartford, on the bodies of Thomas Lane, his wife, three children, and his mother. The murderer’s conduct was stated very particularly, although, in fact, no such event occurred. The magistrate severely censured the conduct of the whole parties. He ordered the prisoners to be detained, and considered them to be very proper subjects to be made an example of. On Thursday these parties were again brought before the magistrate, together with Mrs. Catnach [the mother] the printer of the bills, which gave a fictitious statement of the horrid murder said to be committed at Dartford. She was severely reprimanded. The two hornblowers were also reprimanded and then discharged.
The busy year of 1820 was a very important one to Catnach, in fact the turning point in his life. The Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III., and father to Queen Victoria, died on the 23rd of January—the event was of sufficient consequence to produce several “Full Particulars,” for street sale. Just six days after his death, viz., on the 29th of January, 1820, George III. died, and that event set the “Catnach Press” going night and day to supply the street papers, containing “Latest particulars,” &c.
“Mourn, Britons mourn! Your sons deplore,
Our Royal Sovereign is now no more,”
was the commencement of a ballad written, printed, and published by J. Catnach, 2, Monmouth-court, 7 Dials. Battledores, Lotteries, and Primers sold cheap. Sold by Marshall, Bristol, and Hook, Brighton.