The History of the Catnach Press: at Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Alnwick and Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, in Northumberland, and Seven Dials, LondonHindley, Charles
History
The History of the Catnach Press: at Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Alnwick and Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, in Northumberland, and Seven Dials, London
Hindley, Charles
Ballads -- Publishing -- England -- History -- 19th century; Ballads, English -- England -- Bibliography; Catnach, James, 1792-1841; Chapbooks -- Publishing -- England -- History -- 19th century; Children's literature -- Publishing -- England -- History -- 19th century; England -- Imprints; Printing
Immediately following these events came the Cato-street conspiracy. On the
24th of February the newspapers contained the startling intelligence
that, on the previous evening, a party of eleven men, headed by Arthur
Thistlewood, who was already known as a political agitator, had been
apprehended at a stable in Cato-street, an obscure place in the locality
of Grosvenor-square, on the charge of being the parties to a conspiracy to
assassinate the greater part of the King's Ministers. The truth of the
intelligence was soon confirmed by the proceedings which took place before
the magisterial authorities; and in due course all the parties were put on
their trial at the Old Bailey, on a charge of high treason, Arthur
Thistlewood, the leader, being the first tried on the 17th of April; the
Lord Chief Justice Abbott presiding. The names of the other prisoners
were--William Davidson, a man of colour; James Ings, John Thomas Brunt,
Richard Tidd, James William Wilson, John Harrison, Richard Bradburn, James
Shaw Strange, and Charles Cooper, of whom the first four, together with
Thistlewood, were executed as traitors on May 1st.
The Cato-street conspiracy proved a rich harvest to all concerned in the
production of street literature. Catnach came in for a fair share of the
work, and he found himself with plenty of cash in hand, and in good time
to increase his trade-plant to meet the great demand for the street-papers
that were in a few months to be published daily, and in reference to the
ever-memorable trial of Queen Caroline; then it was that his business so
enormously increased as at times to require three or four presses going
night and day to keep pace with the great demand for papers, which
contained a very much abridged account of the previous day's evidence, and
taken without the least acknowledgment from an early procured copy of one
of the daily newspapers.
Great as was the demand, the printers of street literature were equal to
the occasion, and all were actively engaged in getting out "papers,"
squibs, lists of various trade deputations to the Queen's levées, lampoons
and songs, that were almost hourly published, on the subject of the
Queen's trial. The following is a selection from one which emanated from
the "Catnach Press," and was supplied to us by John Morgan, the Seven
Dials bard, and who added that he had the good luck--the times being
prosperous--to screw out half-a-crown from Old Jemmy for the writing of
it. "Ah! sir," he continued, "it was always a hard matter to get much out
of Jemmy Catnach, I can tell you, sir. He was, at most times, a
hard-fisted one, and no mistake about it. Yet, sir, somehow or another, he
warn't such a bad sort, just where he took. A little bit rough and ready,
like, you know, sir. But yet still a 'nipper.' That's just about the size
of Jemmy Catnach, sir. I wish I could recollect more of the song, but
you've got the marrow of it, sir:--
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