Launched on 22 October 2014, the Qatar Digital Library (QDL) was developed as part of a longstanding partnership between the Qatar Foundation, the Qatar National Library, and the British Library.  The partnership includes the digitisation of a wide range of material from the British Library’s collections, aimed at improving understanding of the modern history of the Gulf, Arabic cultural heritage, and the Islamic world.

Since the QDL’s launch, nearly two and a half million images have been published, mainly deriving from two collections held by the British Library: the India Office Records (IOR) and Private Papers, and the Library’s Arabic manuscripts collection.  A small selection of items held by the Qatar National Library also features on the website.  Published alongside all these images are detailed catalogue descriptions, available in English and Arabic.

In the following passages, members of the team of experts working on the QDL reflect on memorable material that they and former colleagues have encountered during the last decade.

• The General Treaty with the Arab Tribes of the Persian Gulf, and the importance of looking beyond appearances – IOR/L/PS/10/606 and others

Printed copy of the 1820 General Treaty with the Arab Tribes of the Persian Gulf – IOR/L/PS/10/606, f. 131r

The General Treaty with the Arab Tribes of the Persian Gulf is central to understanding the modern history of the Gulf and Britain’s role within it.  It is perhaps, then, no coincidence that it was given a rather vague and innocuous-sounding title, as this belied the force that lay behind it and the unbalanced relations it established with the rulers who signed it.

• Individual stories within the imperial war machine: the war diaries of the Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’ – IOR/L/MIL/17/5/3223 through to IOR/L/MIL/17/5/3328

Front cover of an Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’ War Diary, covering 1-15 August 1917 – IOR/L/MIL/17/5/3282

The War Diaries of the Indian Expeditionary Force ‘D’ – a British Indian army dispatched to Ottoman Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) during the First World War – are an excellent introduction to the fascinating complexity of the IOR collection.  They describe the day-to-day activities of a large military as it steadily advanced against its Ottoman opponents, allied with local populations, and laid the groundwork for post-war imperial ambitions to keep Mesopotamia under British control.  The volumes also contain wonderful individual stories, ranging from a disastrous journey made by German aviators to the efforts of a lone Frenchman to stay one step ahead of the British authorities and take up a diplomatic post in occupied Baghdad.

• Royal letter dispatching in late 19th century Afghanistan – Mss Eur F111/361

A kharita sent in January 1899 by Abdur Rahman Khan Barakzay, Amir of Afghanistan, to Lord George Curzon – Mss Eur F111/361, ff. 2r, 3r, and 4r (the silk pouch does not have a folio number)

This very small file consists of two letters, dated 1895 and 1899 respectively, from Abdur Rahman Khan Barakzay, Amir of Afghanistan (reigned 1880-1901) to Lord George Curzon (Viceroy of India, 1899-1905).  The second letter is a kharita, a type of letter that was usually sent in an elaborate textile pouch, and which for centuries was dispatched as part of the royal correspondence of Muslim rulers.  The kharita is interesting not only for its contents but also for the way in which its various parts were made and arranged, as covered in this QDL expert article.

• A letter requesting plant specimens for the new Botanical Garden in Bengal – IOR/R/15/1/1

Letter dated 3 October 1787, from Samuel Manesty, Resident at Basra, to Edward Galley, Resident, and Charles Watkins, Factor, at Bushehr – IOR/R/15/1/1, f 50-50v

This short letter to Bushehr, containing a list of plants and a request that specimens be searched for, collected, and sent to Bengal, illustrates the Gulf being integrated into an expanding scientific endeavour, one that was becoming increasingly facilitated by British and European imperial expansion, to which it also contributed, as discussed in this QDL expert article.

IOR Cataloguing Team, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

 

Whilst undertaking some work on the pension records of the Lord Clive Fund, I came across the marriage of Captain John Villiers Forbes to Anne Burgett in Calcutta, Bengal.

Marriage entry for John Villiers Forbes and Anne Burgett, 23 January 1849 at Calcutta, showing him described as a 'Single Man'. IOR/N/1/75 f.83

What caught my eye about the marriage was that John Villiers Forbes was described as a ‘Single Man’. The usual terminology in the India marriage records at that time was ‘Bachelor’ for an unmarried man and ‘Widower’ for a married man who had been bereaved. I had never seen the term ‘Single Man’ used before, suggesting that the Chaplain wished to make a point about the marital status of the groom!

John Villiers Forbes was born in Walcot, Somerset in 1807, the son of Thomas John & Elizabeth Forbes. He was appointed an Ensign in the Bengal Army in April 1823.

On 4 April 1831 he was married in Port Louis, Mauritius, to Marie Eudoxie De Bissey. The couple returned to Bengal shortly afterwards and had six children: Eliza Mary born 1832, Charles D’Oyly born 1833, Henry Villiers born 1836, Anna Maria Louisa born 1837, Caroline Virginie Elisabeth born 1839 and Adelaide Marie Eudoxie born 1846.

On 23 January 1849 John Villier Forbes was married for a second time to Anne Burgett, and the couple had three children Eliza Caroline Matilda born 1849, Arthur Frederick Colin born 1851 and Herbert Edward born 1853.

At the time of John Villier Forbes’s second marriage, his first wife Marie Eudoxie was still alive and living in Mauritius, which may explain the choice of words used by the Chaplain to describe Forbes's marital status.

The circumstances surrounding John Villiers Forbes being permitted to marry when his first wife was still alive are unclear. It could be that he and his first wife were divorced; it is also possible that as his first marriage was Catholic it would not have been recognised by the Church of England, and he would legally, if not morally, have been considered single.

Marie Eudoxie Forbes also remarried on 10 July 1851 in Mauritius to Alexandre George de Courson de la Villeneuve, and the couple had one daughter, Mary.

Marie Eudoxie de Courson passed away in 1851 and was buried at Pamplemousses Cemetery in Mauritius.

First two pages of the will of John Villiers Forbes, written in June 1853, outlining his wishes in relation to his children from his first marriage. IOR/L/AG/34/29/88 f.145

John Villiers Forbes died in Calcutta on 15 July 1853. His will left all his money and estates to his wife Anne, along with guardianship of their three children. He also left instructions for her relating to his surviving children from his first marriage. He left £100 Sterling each to his sons Charles D’Oyly and Henry Villiers, who at that time were at school in Essex before entering the British Army. His three daughters, Anna Maria Louisa, Caroline Virginie Elisabeth and Adelaide Marie Eudoxie, were described as living in Mauritius in the care of his late wife’s family and being supported by maternal inheritance, and he appointed their maternal uncle Gaston de Bissey as one of their guardians.

John’s second wife Anne moved to Munich following her husband’s death and remarried there in 1875 to Franz Binder.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
Bengal Marriage - IOR/N/1/75, f.83 marriage entry for John Villiers Forbes to Anne Burgett, 23 January 1849.
Bengal Burials - IOR/N/1/84, p.211 burial entry for John Villiers Forbes, 15 July 1853.
Bengal Wills - IOR/IOR/L/AG/34/29/88, f.145 – will of John Villiers Forbes, 1853.
Grave of ‘Marie Eudoxie de Courson’ at Cimetière de Pamplemousses, Mauritius 
Bengal Baptisms - IOR/N/1/35, f.79 – baptism of Eliza Mary Forbes, 29 April 1833; IOR/N/1/38, f.126 – baptism of Charles D’Oyly Forbes, 13 April 1834; IOR/N/1/50, f.60 – baptism of Anna Maria Louisa Forbes, 22 April 1838; IOR/N/1/77, f.64 – baptism of Eliza Caroline Matilda Forbes, 26 February 1850; IOR/ N/1/80, f.316 – baptism of Arthur Frederick Colin Forbes, 16 November 1851; IOR/N/1/83, f.267 – baptism of Herbert Edward Forbes, 5 June 1853.

A recent acquisition to the India Office Private Papers has now been catalogued and is available for researchers to view in the British Library’s Asian and African Studies reading room.  The collection consists of correspondence, files, diaries, printed papers and maps of Robert Francis Sarjeant Baylis (1903-1996), Indian Civil Service (District and Sessions Judge, United Provinces) 1927-1949 and his wife Edith Audrey Baylis (née Clay) (1910-1998) relating to their family life in India.  

 

Detail from the Naini Tal Guide Map (Survey of India 1938) Mss Eur F765/8/2

 

Robert Baylis was born on 11 June 1903, and educated at Christ's Hospital and Lincoln College, Oxford.  He joined the Indian Civil Service on 20 October 1927, and arrived in India that December.  Initially appointed as an Assistant Magistrate and Collector in the United Provinces, he subsequently worked as District and Session Judge around various stations in the UP, including Bara Banki, Meerut, Allahabad and Cawnpore.  He finished his career in the ICS at the time of Independence as the District and Session Judge for Kumaon.  Robert’s papers only contain a few files relating to his work as a Judge, with most of his official papers in the collection relating to his preparations for retiring and leaving India in 1947.  There are also letters to his wife Audrey, letters he received from friends and family, and an unpublished memoir of his life as a Judge in India. 

 

Invitation to Independence Day celebration 15 August 1947 Mss Eur F765/1/28 f.3

 

In 1934, Robert was engaged to Edith Audrey Clay, and they were married in Lucknow on 15 January 1935.  Audrey, as she preferred to be known, was the daughter of Sir Joseph Clay, who had been a senior member of the United Provinces government, and advisor to the Secretary of State for India.  She was a dedicated diary writer, and the collection contains her diaries recording daily events in her life from 1920 to 1950.  There is also a large collection of her correspondence including letters to her husband Robert and from family and friends in India and England.  Audrey enjoyed writing, and the collection includes examples of short stories she wrote and chapters from an unfinished memoir ‘The Years Between’.  Her book about her early life in India is in the British Library’s printed collections. 

 

The collection also contains papers relating to other family members.  Robert and Audrey had four children, and there are papers relating to their early childhood in India.  Audrey had two sisters, Daphne and Betty, and the collection includes examples of their letters and diaries.  There are also letters from Audrey’s parents Sir Joseph Clay and Lady Clay, as well as from Robert’s parents and siblings. 

 

The collection contains many very interesting papers relating to the Second World War.  When war broke out, Robert and Audrey were on leave in England, and Robert was immediately recalled to India.  It was several months later before Audrey could travel back with the children and their Indian nanny, and Robert’s letters to her are full of worry over the threat of German submarine attacks.  The letters from family in England between 1940 and 1945 are fascinating for giving descriptions of life during wartime.  In India, the fear of Japanese invasion was very real. 

 

Programme for War Week St John Ambulance Brigade Overseas Mss Eur F765/2/48 f.38

 

Audrey was a serving member of the St John Ambulance Brigade Overseas, and the collection contains material relating to the Air Raid Precautions which every family was expected to take, including on what to do before, during and after an air raid; emergency first aid and treating snake bites; obscuring headlights; and building air raid shelters.

 

Air Raid Precautions information leaflet Mss Eur F765/7/5 f.5

 

Notice issued by Delhi Rationing 1947 Mss Eur F765/7/18

 

John O’Brien

India Office Records 

 

Further Reading:

Papers of the Clay and Baylis family, Mss Eur F765 – a paper catalogue of the contents is available to consult in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room. The book And Then Garhwal by Audrey Baylis (London: BACSA, 1981) is available in the British Library printed collections. 

 

 

Researching the East India Company's London warehouse labourers is a challenge because many of the documents about them were destroyed by the India Office in the mid-19th century.  So it is always exciting to discover fresh sources of information about them.  Recently I came across the King's Freemen collection at The London Archives.  This consists of military discharge papers lodged with the Chamberlain of the Corporation of London by servicemen and their families in order to obtain certificates of entitlement to exercise a trade in the City, without being admitted to the freedom.  There are papers for East India Company warehouse labourers who served in the Royal East India Volunteers in the period before 1814.

I have found 25 discharge certificates for Company warehouse labourers in the King's Freemen collection.  Almost all are copies, but the document submitted for Willliam Jordan is the original certificate issued at East India Buildings, Cutler Street, on 5 May 1814, signed by Robert Markland Barnard, Captain and Adjutant of the Third Regiment of the REIV, and bearing the Company’s seal in red wax. 

As well as giving an outline of the man’s service, many of the certificates give interesting and useful personal details.

John Morgan of the Third Regiment was born in the parish of St Leonard Shoreditch in Middlesex and in December 1814 he was living at 1 George Street in Bethnal Green.  He was about 33 years of age, 5 feet 9 ¾ inches in height, with a sallow complexion, grey eyes, and light brown hair, and his skin was pitted by smallpox.

Robert Dynan served as a Private in the 5th Company of the First Regiment of the REIV.  He was born in London and was living in August 1814 at Field Lane in Holborn.  Aged about 44, he was 5 feet 5 ½ inches tall, and had a light complexion, grey eyes, and brown hair.

Dynan had joined the Company warehouses as a labourer in July 1803.  Having worked in the Private Trade warehouse, he transferred to the Crutched Friars tea warehouse in December 1834.  He was made redundant in March 1835 because the Company’s commercial operations were being wound up, and he was awarded a weekly pension of 11 shillings.

Field Lane, Holborn, from Illustrated London News 23 January 1847. Image © Illustrated London News Group. Image created courtesy of The British Library Board.

The information about Dynan’s residence in the discharge certificate makes it possible to identify him in other records which show his life outside the warehouses.  Dynan lived for decades in Field Lane which was described by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist as’ a narrow and dismal alley’, ‘the emporium of petty larceny’.

Description of Field Lane from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens - Illustrated London News 23 January 1847, Image © Illustrated London News Group. Image created courtesy of The British Library Board.

Whilst he was employed as a warehouse labourer, Dynan also kept a shoemaker’s shop in Field Lane. He was sued for debt in 1811 and imprisoned in Newgate. In 1827 William Sage was convicted at the Old Bailey for stealing a pair of shoes worth 5s from Dynan’s shop.

Dynan’s wife Margaret had a clothes shop in Field Lane. In 1829 she was tried at the Old Bailey for knowingly receiving stolen goods, a pair of trousers worth 19s.  Margaret was acquitted but William Scasebrook, aged 18, was found guilty of theft and transported for seven years.

Margaret and Robert were still living in Field Lane when they died in 1837 and 1842, aged 68 and 80 respectively. Both were buried at the church of St Andrew Holborn.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
The London Archives COL/CHD/FR/11/04 King's Freemen 1780s-1820s
Colours of the Royal East India Volunteers
Black labourers in London
IOR/L/AG/30/4-5 Registers of East India Company warehouse labourers
Margaret Makepeace, The East India Company's London Workers: Management of the Warehouse Labourers, 1800-1858 (2010)
British Newspaper Archive
Old Bailey Online

On 31 May 1916, the India Office Library purchased seven items at auction from Hodgson & Co.  Lot 29 cost £1 10 shillings, with 9d postage.  The correspondence about the purchase is significant because it establishes that the items once belonged to the collection of Sir Alexander Johnston, Chief Justice and President in Council in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).  This provenance information had not previously been recorded in our catalogues and the link between the items had been obscured.

Notice of auction at Hodgson & Co - Westminster Gazette 27 May 1916 British Newspaper Archive

Lot 29 included copies of letters relating to Baptist Missionary Henry Beddy.  Born in Dublin, he enlisted in the East India Company’s Bengal Army at 19, arriving in India in 1811 to serve in the Bengal Artillery.  Beddy married three times.  His first wife Mary Anne died in childbirth in 1816, and his second wife (also Mary Anne) died in 1822.  On 16 January 1823 he married Margaret MacDonough, and they had at least 11 children.

List of correspondence relating to Henry Beddy -Mss Eur C92

Henry Beddy was baptised into the Baptist faith about 1827, and having left the Bengal Army was appointed as a Baptist Missionary to Patna in 1831.  Margaret’s younger sister Ellen (Eleanor) MacDonough lived with the Beddys from childhood and was closely involved in missionary work, running the Orphan Refuge.

Ellen became involved with government servant George Hutteman.  Henry Beddy tried to put an end to the relationship, but on 20 November 1847 Ellen eloped with George, married, and moved to Calcutta.  Beddy found it impossible to understand Ellen’s actions and wrote a number of letters to her, besmirching her character.  On 1 December 1847 he wrote ‘Not a member of my family shall ever speak to you with my permission... I shall impress on the children’s mind that their Aunt Ellen MacDonough is to them dead’.  Beddy was later to admit: ‘I had written language capable of being used to my discredit’.

The Huttemans attended the Lall Bazar Baptist Church in Calcutta.  The Minister James Thomas wrote to Beddy about his sister-in-law.  Beddy’s reply accused Ellen of falsehood and deception and stated that George was an ‘unbeliever’.  His hostile attitude led to an investigation into his conduct towards Ellen. 

Note by James Thomas introducing the collection of documents about Henry Beddy and Ellen MacDonough -Mss Eur C92

Thomas gathered together copies of correspondence from the various protagonists and witnesses, so they could be presented to a Baptist Committee in London.  Beddy’s own letters admitted ‘an intimacy, friendship and affection sprang up between us that led to great familiarity, and it is now lamentably true that this familiarity was looked upon by some persons as improper’, whilst Reverend Nathaniel Brice was of the opinion that ‘there are facts connected with the affair which would make your ears tingle...’.

Extract of letter from Henry Beddy to James Thomas, 13 March 1848 --Mss Eur C92

Removed from Patna, Beddy and his family moved to Simla, where he became Pastor at the First Baptist Church.  He died there on 3 June 1857.

Ellen and George had three daughters, and after his death in 1866, she married Reverend John Lawrence of Monghyr.  She died in Christchurch, Hampshire, in 1879.

The India Office appreciated that the contents of the volume were problematic.  In a letter dated 26 January 1936 the Librarian H N Randle wrote that he hesitated to include the letters as part of the forthcoming catalogue of manuscripts as ‘there may be relatives alive, even after 90 years and it seems best to let these personalities rest in obscurity for another hundred years’.

Provenance research is more than acquiring a greater understanding of our collections and their history. It uncovers fascinating human stories along the way.

Lesley Shapland
Archivist & Provenance Researcher
India Office Records

Further reading:
Mss Eur C92: Volume compiled by Rev J Thomas, Calcutta, containing copies of correspondence relating to charges of misconduct against Rev Henry Beddy, missionary at Patna for the London Baptist Missionary Society
IOR/L/R/7/20, R961/16: India Office Record Department Annual Files, 1916
Mss Eur F303/23, p.137: India Office Library, Day Book, 14 Jul 1916
IOR/L/R/9/26, L36/37: Library Committee Papers & References, 1937
Missionary Herald, May 1832 
Full text of 'The story of the Lall Bazar Baptist Church Calcutta : being the history of Carey's church from 24th April 1800 to the present day'
India Office Library Catalogue of Manuscripts in European Languages. Vol. II, Pt. II: Minor Collections and Miscellaneous Manuscripts. By G. R. Kaye and E. H. Johnston. Section I, Nos. 1–538 (London: HMSO, 1937)

In November 1885, after the deposition of King Thibaw at the end of the Third Anglo-Burmese War, British forces moved into the palace at Mandalay, where they found ‘a small royal white elephant’ in the menagerie, with another regular elephant kept as its companion.

Minute paper regarding the discovery of the white elephant in the palace at Mandalay - IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27

In the era of the Konbaung dynasty, to which Thibaw belonged, the possession of a white elephant was required in order to assume the title of Hsinbyushin or Hysinbyumyashin - Lord of the White Elephants - and legitimise one’s position as ruler.  Owning a white elephant signified royalty and status but most importantly, wealth, since housing and keeping these creatures was an expensive endeavour - as the British would soon find out.  Indeed, in English the term ‘white elephant’ now means something that is a financial burden, with little to no benefit.

Note by Sir Ashley Eden of the India Office making reference to white elephants as ‘an emblem of royalty’ and recommending that the animal should not be sent out of Burma - IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27

In a series of letters between the Chief Commissioner of British Burma and the Foreign Department in Simla (Shimla), the question of what to do with these two young elephants - and the financial and political concerns involved - was posited back and forth, with three eventual solutions being proposed:

• The white elephant could be presented to the King of Siam as a gift
• It could be transported to the Royal Zoological Society in London
• It could be kept in the Phayre Gardens at Rangoon (now Yangon).

In these letters, the Secretary for Upper Burma to the Chief Commissioner, Herbert Thirkell White, referred to the ‘uselessness’ of the two elephants, and the ‘inconvenient arrangement’ of paying 140 Burmese rupees a month for their care.  On 14 April 1886 the animals were handed over to the Transport Department, despite not being old enough to serve as beasts of burden.

In the interest of avoiding a political incident, the decision was made not to gift the animals to the King of Siam.  As a letter to the Chief Commissioner explained, presenting a Burmese royal white elephant to the King ‘would be regarded as a humiliation in the eyes of the Siamese’.

A series of letters between Burma, India and Siam discussing the white elephant - IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27

Despite concerns about the white elephant being acquired by ‘pretenders to the throne’ should it be sold within Burma, there was a similar political risk involved in removing the animal from the country.  The Secretary of State for India, Viscount Cross, wrote in a letter to the Governor General of India: ‘... it has been suggested to me that the removal of the animal to this country may produce an unfavourable effect upon the minds of some portion of the natives of Burma, and that it might on that account be more advisable to keep it in the Phayre Gardens at Rangoon’.

Copy of a letter from Viscount Cross, Secretary of State for India, to the Governor General of India, 3 February 1887 - IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27

Copy of a letter from the Chief Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Burma to the Foreign Department in Simla dated 25 May 1887, reporting the decision to transport the white elephant to the Phayre Gardens in Rangoon IOR/L/PJ/6/206, File 1208

Although we have found no record of what happened to its companion, the white elephant’s story has a happy ending, and it was eventually moved to the Phayre Gardens.  In 1901, the Gardens were commissioned as a memorial to Queen Victoria and reopened in 1906 as the Victoria Memorial Park and Zoological Gardens, where the white elephant was touted as the central attraction.

Ely Nott
Library, Information and Archives Services Apprentice

Further reading:
IOR/L/PJ/6/192, File 27 Disposal of a white elephant found in the palace at Mandalay, 14 December 1886-3 February 1887.
IOR/L/PJ/6/206, File 1208 The white elephant found in the palace at Mandalay to be lodged in the Phayre Gardens at Rangoon, 17 June 1887.

 

From 1801, John Fenwick worked as a journalist and newspaper editor.  Noted as either purchasing or editing the radical newspaper the Albion in 1801, when its proprietor Allan MacLeod was in Newgate, and the Plow in 1802.  For the latter, Fenwick wanted to develop a network of regional correspondents.  The extent to which he was successful, or harnessed a news communications network to political purposes, is not known. In the years that followed, he occasionally travelled from London for work.

Report of a political meeting in Nottingham by an ‘able pen’, Statesman 31 May 1810 British Newspaper Archive

From April 1810, if not before, Fenwick likely worked on the radical daily newspaper the Statesman which continued to print while its proprietor and publisher Daniel Lovell was in Newgate in 1810-15.  Other than a letter from Charles Lamb to Barron Field in 1817, direct evidence that Fenwick edited the Statesman is scant.  Political meetings were occasionally reported by an unnamed ‘able pen’.  In October 1810, the Statesman published a warmly appreciative theatre review which focused exclusively on the Covent Garden debut of Eliza Ann Fenwick, John and Eliza Fenwick’s daughter.

Theatre review on the Covent Garden debut of Eliza Ann Fenwick, John and Eliza Fenwick’s daughter, Statesman 6 October 1810 - British Newspaper Archive

John Fenwick’s family relied partly on Eliza Fenwick’s income as a children’s writer, and neither parent had guaranteed earnings.  Fenwick was briefly subject to the rules of Fleet prison as a debtor.  The creditors named alongside his discharge in April 1808 confirmed that his unpaid bills comprised those of the school master Samuel Boucher Allen, who may have taught their son Orlando Fenwick; and the apothecary surgeon James Moss, of Somers Town where the Godwins lived, who might have prescribed for or been called to attend any member of the Fenwick family.  A John Fenwick published a well reviewed A new elementary grammar of the English language (1811), shortly after William Hazlitt completed A new and improved grammar of the English tongue (1810) for Godwin’s Juvenile Library.

Masthead for The London Moderator and National Adviser 14 October 1818 printed and published by Thomas James Fenwick - British Newspaper Archive

In March 1812, John Fenwick’s brother Thomas James Fenwick (1768-1850), a draper and slop seller in Limehouse, started a weekly newspaper The London Moderator and National Adviser which continued to print until 1823. Eliza Fenwick noted that

My brother has offered to pay me, if I will write, by the sheet, as I advance. He has bought printing premises types etc for a newspaper he has started, and as he must keep a certain number of men he wishes to purchase manuscripts to print.

It is likely that John Fenwick edited this weekly newspaper from 1812, and he may have continued to do so until 1823.  On the masthead, John Fenwick appeared as the proprietor of this newspaper in December 1818, before the paper was purchased in January 1819 by a John Twigg.

Masthead for The London Moderator and National Adviser 30 December 1818 printed and published by John Fenwick -  British Newspaper Archive

Fenwick briefly employed Charles Lamb to write for the Albion in the Summer of 1801.  Two decades later, in 1820, Charles Lamb lampooned his former employer as the ‘excellent tosspot’ Ralph Bigod, an impecunious republican newspaper editor.  And so commenced the laughable legend, which led the academic Lissa Paul to bluntly reinvent the hard to research John Fenwick as ‘a deadbeat’, in her 2019 biography of the novelist and children’s writer Eliza Fenwick.

CC-BY
Dr Charlotte MacKenzie
Independent researcher
@HistoryCornwall

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive - much free content, including The London Moderator and National Adviser and Statesman

John Fenwick political radical and writer (1)

 

This post shares new research about the political radical and writer John Fenwick (1757-1823).

John Fenwick lived in Newcastle upon Tyne as a child.  He was the son of the Methodist preacher John Fenwick (d. 1787), who left the itinerancy and traded in 1756-77, after marrying Priscilla Mackaris (1735-71).  The younger Fenwick likely attended Newcastle Free School when Hugh Moises was schoolmaster.

Copper token with a cat issued by Thomas Spence, inscribed MY FREEDOM I AMONG SLAVES ENJOY, London 1796 - image courtesy of the British Museum

Fenwick was a contemporary of the working class radical Thomas Spence (1750-1814), who first promulgated his plans for ‘democratic parishes’ at the Newcastle Philosophical Society in 1775.  Before moving to London in the late 1780s, where Spence became well known as a radical bookseller, and later produced the meme like cat token here.  Charles Lamb noted to the Parliamentary clerk John Rickman that Fenwick ‘in youth conversed with the philosophers’.

Lieutenant George Belson, Corps of Marines, outside the Guard Room of the Marine Barracks, Chatham, 1780. Image courtesy of the National Army Museum.

Fenwick was described by others as an Army officer in his youth.  The only ‘J. Fenwick’ listed as an Army officer in 1773-87 was a second lieutenant of the British Marine Corps on half pay.  First listed in 1773 (when John Fenwick was aged 16), then as a second lieutenant in 1775, 1777-78, and 1784-87.  He might have been assigned without a commission in the intervening war years.  In 1793, Fenwick downplayed the extent of his military experience in a letter to General Miranda of the French republican army.

Aged 31, Fenwick sprang fully formed onto the pages of William Godwin’s diary in August 1788.  When he, Godwin, and Thomas Holcroft dined together at the White Hart in London.  He was proposed and accepted as a member of the Society of Constitutional Information in 1792.  He probably attended the Philomathean Society, at which Godwin, Holcroft and others met to debate, with a maximum 21 members.

Fenwick was a republican.  He travelled to France in 1793, and earned his living partly as a translator from French to English.  In 1796-7, payments were made to Committee members who produced The Moral and Political Magazine of the London Corresponding Society, among whom the ‘Fenwick’ who offered to complete these tasks without payment for two months, in December 1796, probably was John Fenwick.

Satirical print entitled 'Promenade in the State Side of Newgate', London 1793. The figures are identified at the bottom of the page. Image courtesy of the British Museum.

Fenwick was closely associated with some men convicted of sedition in the 1790s.  The London Corresponding Society made donations to support the family of Joseph Gerrald (pictured here with a newspaper) after he was transported following the ‘British Convention’ in Edinburgh.  His daughter Fanny Gerrald (b. 1791) stayed with John and Eliza Fenwick and their two children in 1798-9.

At that time, Fenwick also attended the trial and execution of the priest James Coigly, was entrusted to edit and publish Coigly’s papers, and separately published his own pamphlet on the trial.  Soon after, Fenwick travelled to Dublin, in February 1799, where he remained until late April.

As the millenium turned, Fenwick looked for new ways to further radical politics and earn a living.  His short biography of Godwin appeared in the second volume of Richard Phillips’ Public Characters (October, 1799).  He wrote a stage comedy The Indian: a farce, derived from the pre-revolutionary French opera Arlequin sauvage, which opened in London in October 1800 and was not a success.  From 1801, John Fenwick sought to earn his living as a journalist, which is the subject of our next post.

CC-BY
Dr Charlotte MacKenzie
Independent researcher
@HistoryCornwall

Creative Commons Attribution licence

John Fenwick political radical and writer (2)