A’BECKETT, GILBERT ABBOT (_2 son of Wm. A’Beckett of Golden sq._) _b._ The Grange, Haverstock hill, London 9 Jany. 1811. ed. at Westminster school; sole proprietor of following periodicals, _The terrific penny magazine_, _The Ghost_, _The Lover_, _The gallery of terrors_, _The Figaro_ monthly newspaper, and _The Figaro_ caricature gallery; proprietor with Thomas Littleton Holt of following periodicals, _The evangelical penny magazine_, _Dibdin’s penny trumpet_, _The thief_, _Poor Richard’s journal_, and _The people’s penny pictures_; student at Gray’s Inn 25 Apl. 1828; dramatic critic of the _Weekly Despatch_; edited _Figaro in London_ comic weekly paper, 160 numbers 1 Dec. 1831 to 27 Dec. 1834; joint manager with Edward Mayhew of the Fitzroy theatre, Fitzroy st. Tottenham court road, London 1834 where he produced his first burlesque Glaucus and Scylla; edited _The Wag_ 1837, and _The Squib_ 1842, comic weekly papers; one of the original staff of _Punch or the London Charivari_, which appeared 17 July 1841, wrote in it from number 4 to his death; wrote leading articles in _The Times_ one year, and in _Morning Herald_; wrote humorous articles in _Pictorial Times_; barrister G.I. 27 Jany 1841; poor Law comr. to inquire into iniquities practised in Andover union, March 1846; magistrate at Greenwich and Woolwich police court, Feb. 1849, and at Southwark, Dec. 1849 to death; went to Boulogne 17 July 1856; author of _Scenes from the rejected comedies_, a series of parodies upon living dramatists 1844; _The quizziology of the British drama_ 1846; _The comic Blackstone_ 1846; _The comic history of England_, _2 vols._ 1847–8; _The comic history of Rome_ 1852; wrote more than 50 plays; dramatised with Mark Lemon, Dickens’s novel “_The Chimes_,” produced at Adelphi theatre 19 Dec. 1844. (_m._ about 1836 Mary Anne eld. dau. of Joseph Glossop, she was granted a civil list pension of £100, 23 Oct. 1856. She _m._ (2) George Jones, barrister, and _d._ 11 Dec. 1863 aged 46). _d._ of typhus fever at Rue Neuve Chaussée, Boulogne 30 Aug. 1856, body removed to Highgate cemetery. _The Critic, xv._ 436 (1856); _Mr. Punch, his origin and career_ 1870; _Alfred Bunn’s A word with Punch_ 1847, _pp._ 5–7 _pt._; _I.L.N. xxx_, 570 (1857), _view of his tomb in Highgate cemetery_. NOTE.—There is a portrait of him by Leech in his two page cartoon, called “Mr. Punch’s fancy ball” in _Punch_ 9 Jany. 1847, where he is represented as playing the violin in the orchestra between the double bass and the clarionet. His first contribution to _Punch_, entitled “The above bridge navy,” appeared in No. 4, 7 Aug. 1841 with John Leech’s earliest cartoon, “Foreign Affairs.”