[5] Passages of a Working Life.
[6] At this time there was another illustrated weekly magazine in existence—the Mirror, which began about 1822. The engravings it contained were chiefly of a topographical character.
[7] The Saturday Magazine was started in imitation of the Penny Magazine, and, like its prototype, had a considerable popularity for some years.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Illustrated London News—The Early Numbers—The Burning of Hamburgh—Facetious Advertisements—Bal Masque at Buckingham Palace—Attempted Assassination of the Queen—The Queen’s First Trip by Railway—First Royal Visit to Scotland—Political Portraits—R. Cobden—Lord John Russell—Benjamin Disraeli—The French Revolution, 1848—The Great Exhibition, 1851—The Crimean War—Coloured Pictures—Christmas Numbers—Herbert Ingram—The Pictorial Times—Other Illustrated Journals.
Having traced the idea of illustrating the news of the day from the early ‘news-book’ through its various stages of growth and development, we come to the first regular illustrated newspaper that was established. The projector had long held the opinion, founded on his experience as a newsvendor at Nottingham, that such a publication would succeed. He had noticed that when the Observer and the Weekly Chronicle contained engravings, there was a much larger demand for those papers than when they were without illustrations, and he conceived the idea of starting a paper whose chief attraction should be its pictures. He thought if he could combine art and news together, he would be adding greatly to the ordinary attractions of a newspaper, and would probably secure a widely extended circle of readers. His customers at Nottingham often asked for the ‘London news’ when anything of interest was astir in the Metropolis, and his observant shrewdness led him to conclude that this would be a good name for his paper. He accordingly called it the Illustrated London News, and under that title the first number appeared on May 14th, 1842. It contained sixteen printed pages and thirty-two woodcuts, including all the little headings to the columns, price sixpence, and it equalled in size the Atlas which was then sold for a shilling, without engravings. It was printed by R. Palmer (at the office of Palmer and Clayton), 10 Crane Court, Fleet Street, and published by J. Clayton, 320 Strand. The introductory address is written in a florid and inflated style; but it shows a correct perception of the wide and varied range that would have to be taken by an illustrated newspaper.
| THE BURNING OF HAMBURGH. FROM THE FIRST NUMBER OF THE ‘ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS,’ MAY 14, 1842. |
| HEADING TO ‘COURT AND HAUT TON,’ COLUMN, ‘ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS,’ MAY 14, 1842. |