MAYHEW, HENRY (1812–1887), English author and journalist, son of a London solicitor, was born in 1812. He was sent to Westminster school, but ran away to sea. He sailed to India, and on his return studied law for a short time under his father. He began his journalistic career by founding, with Gilbert à Beckett, in 1831, a weekly paper, Figaro in London. This was followed in 1832 by a short-lived paper called The Thief; and he produced one or two successful farces. His brothers Horace (1816–1872) and Augustus Septimus (1826–1875) were also journalists, and with them Henry occasionally collaborated, notably with the younger in The Greatest Plague of Life (1847) and in Acting Charades (1850). In 1841 Henry Mayhew was one of the leading spirits in the foundation of Punch, of which he was for the first two years joint-editor with Mark Lemon. He afterwards wrote on all kinds of subjects, and published a number of volumes of no permanent reputation—humorous stories, travel and practical handbooks. He is credited with being the first to “write up” the poverty side of London life from a philanthropic point of view; with the collaboration of John Binny and others he published London Labour and London Poor (1851; completed 1864) and other works on social and economic questions. He died in London, on the 25th of July 1887. Horace Mayhew was for some years sub-editor of Punch, and was the author of several humorous publications and plays. The books of Horace and Augustus Mayhew owe their survival chiefly to Cruikshank’s illustrations.
In the World of London, indeed, we find almost every geographic species of the human family. If Arabia has its nomadic tribes, the British Metropolis has its vagrant hordes as well. If the Carib Islands have their savages, the English Capital has types almost as brutal and uncivilized as they. If India has its Thugs, London has its garotte men.
Henry Mayhew, The Criminal Prisons of London (1862), p. 5
Henry Mayhew was born on 25 November 1812 in London, one of seventeen children of Joshua Mayhew. He was educated at Westminster School before running away from his studies to sea. He then served with the East India Company as a midshipman on a ship bound for Calcutta. He returned after several years, in 1829, becoming a trainee lawyer in Wales. He left this and became a freelance journalist. He contributed to The Thief, a readers’ digest, followed quickly by editing a weekly journal – Figaro in London. Mayhew reputedly fled his creditors and holed up at The Erwood Inn, a small public house in the village of Erwood, south of Builth Wells in Wales.
In 1835 Mayhew found himself in a state of debt and, along with a fellow writer, escaped to Paris to avoid his creditors. He spent his time writing and in the company of other writers including William Thackeray and Douglas Jerrold. Mayhew spent over ten years in Paris returning to England in the 1850s whereby he was involved in several literary adventures, mostly the writing of plays. Two of his plays – But, However and the Wandering Minstrel – were successful, whilst his early work Figaro in London was less successful.
On 17 July 1841 Mayhew cofounded Punch magazine. At its founding the magazine was jointly edited by Mayhew and Mark Lemon. The two men hired a group of writers and illustrators, including Douglas Jerrold, Angus Reach, John Leech, Richard Doyle and Shirley Brooks. Initially it was subtitled The London Charivari, this being a reference to a satirical humour magazine published in France under the title Le Charivari (a work read often whilst Mayhew was in Paris).
Punch was an unexpected success, selling about 6,000 copies a week in the early years. However, sales of as many as 10,000 issues a week were required to cover all costs of the magazine. In December 1842, the magazine was sold to Bradbury and Evans; Mayhew resigned as joint editor, and he continued at the magazine as “suggestor in chief” with Mark Lemon re-appointed as editor. Mayhew eventually severed his connection with the magazine, writing his last article in February 1845. His brother Horace stayed on the board of Punch until his own death.
The Punch years gave Mayhew the opportunity to meet talented illustrators who he later employed to work from daguerreotypes on London Labour and the London Poor. Following Punch magazine, Mayhew launched Iron Times, a railway magazine. However this venture lost Mayhew so much money that he was forced to appear in a Court of Bankruptcy in 1846.
In 1842 Mayhew contributed to the pioneering Illustrated London News. By this time Mayhew had become reasonably secure financially, had settled his debts and married Jane Jerrold (d. 1880), the daughter of his friend Douglas Jerrold.
London Labour and the London Poor is today the work for which Myhew is best known. Originally appearing as a series of articles, the material was initially collected into three volumes in 1851; the 1861 edition included a fourth volume, co-written with Bracebridge Hemyng, John Binny and Andrew Halliday, on the lives of prostitutes, thieves and beggars. This Extra Volume took a more general and statistical approach to its subject than Volumes 1 to 3.
Mayhew wrote in volume one: “I shall consider the whole of the metropolitan poor under three separate phases, according as they will work, they can’t work, and they won’t work”. He interviewed everyone – beggars, street-entertainers (such as Punch and Judy men), market traders, prostitutes, labourers, sweatshop workers, even down to the “mudlarks” who searched the stinking mud on the banks of the River Thames for wood, metal, rope and coal from passing ships, and the “pure-finders” who gathered dog faeces to sell to tanners. He described their clothes, how and where they lived, their entertainments and customs, and made detailed estimates of the numbers and incomes of those practising each trade. The books show how marginal and precarious many people’s lives were, in what, at that time, was the richest city in the world.
Later works included The Criminal Prisons of London (1862), The Boyhood of Martin Luther (1863), German Life and Manners as Seen in Saxony at the Present Day (1865), and London Characters (1881)
He died on 25 July 1887.