-.,. .. - .11£ • -, . ~··~: VOLUME F. I F'T EE N . H:ACKNEYi 'A'RCHIV.ES Hackney History volume fifteen 'Lives of the convicts': Philip Sugden 3 solving a puzzle in printing history The Tyssen Library copy of 'Lives of the S al/y England 9 convicts' More light, more power: Chri,topher Verrett 12 electricity generation and waste disposal in Shored itch, 1897-2009 Mayors' medals for local children, Robert H. Thompson 23 1902-1919 Elizabeth and Mark Wilks, Julia Lafferty 31 campaigners for women's suffrage The skid-kids: the post-war John Goldsmith 42 phenomenon of cycle speedway From high hopes to tall flats: the Michael Passmore 50 changing shape of Hackney's housing, 1945-60 Abbreviations used 2 Contributors 63 Ackno1vledgements 64 THE FRIENDS OF HACKNEY ARCHIVES 2009 c/ o Hackney Archives Department 43 De Beauvoir Road N1 SSQ 020 7241 2886 archives@ hackncy. gov.uk 'Lives of the Printed by Premier Prin t Croup E3 3QQ convicts' Edited by Isobel Watson Cover design by Jacqueli ne Bradshaw-Price - ISSN 1370 3795 solving a problem 1n © Friends of Hackney 1\rchives and contributors, 2009 printing history Philip Sugden Abbreviations used in the notes to this issue HAD Hackney Archives Department Rare survivals I was a regular contributor on early-modern criminal biography to the Oxford Dirtionaiy of National Biography. LMA London Metropolitan Archives O ne of the articles I wrote for that work dealt with Jack Sheppard, the celebrated prison-breaker and popular hero executed at Tyburn in 1724. I have had, indeed, a long-standing interest in Jack's life and legend and am now close to fini shing a full-scale biography. It was while browsing th e British Library Publications cited are published in London catalogue for early Sheppard literature that I first encountered Applebee's Lives of the Convicts. unless otherwise indicated T his title intrigued me. It is exceedingly little known. And this despite the fact that it was printed by John Applebee, the most important publisher of criminal biography in the third, fourth and fifth decades of the 18th century. Historical crime has become a very fashionable area of scholastic inquiry since the 1970s but few modern writers seem to be aware of the existence of Apple bee's Lives rf the Convicts. Partly this may reflect the scarcity of surviving copies. At present I know of only nine copies of the 1745 three­ volume edition in Britain and the United States and most of these lack one or two of the three volumes. The British Library copy was destroyed during the Bli tz. The 1760 edition, publi shed in two volumes, is rarer ye t. I am aware of only four copies and these, again, may not all be complete. O ne is the copy at Hackney Archives and the only other copy in the UK known to me is held by the National Library of Scotland. There are two copies in the United States: one in the Library of Congress and the oth er at Princeton University. 3 Hackney History 'Lives of the convicts' Some baffling questions out that Jack Sheppard didn't even appear in the Hackney Archives has a copy of the first There appeared, at the outset, baffling aspects to Hackney copy of the 1760 edition. It seemed volume. I know of three other copies and some the book. Chief among them was the correct dating inconceivable that a collection purporting to offer of these, too, may be incomplete. I have not as of the various editions. its readers accounts of the most remarkable convicts yet found an announcement for this printing from 1700 to 1760 should omit the man then held but suspect that further research will eventually From the English Short Title Catalogue I learned that to be the most extraordinary and celebrated convict produce one. I have, however, no hesitation in the 17 45 edition bears the claim that it was 'the of the age. It would be akin to writing a history of assigning it to 1740. A sampling of newspaper second edition, corrected and enlarged'. I naturally British pop without the Beatles. T II E advertisements for that year proves that supposed, then, that the 1760 edition was the third Applebee, Hodges and Corbett were all then edition and that there had been a first of which no A revised printing history trading at the addressees given and that they copy had survived to be catalogued. This was not an It was an examination of the Hackney copy of the CONTENTS. sometimes collaborated in publishing books. implausible thesis in that 18th century newspapers 1760 edition that ultimately cracked these problems. Hodges and Corbett, for example, collaborated are often found to contain announcements of Most importantly, on the matter of dating. A. in bringing out a third edition of Elisha Smith's publications which have not come down to us NS W F. R 10 the O,Jin;irl''i Am11111 The Cure of Deism in 1740. 1 and which are otherwise unknown. But the more The title-page bears two printed dates: 1739 and A Sht pp:1rJ, t11Jd Rm14rla 1ho,vn. I pondered the details given for the 1760 - and 1760. But, as Sally had already intimated to me by Il. 3. The second edition, 'corrected and presumed third - edition the more puzzled I letter, a correction in ink to the latter date indicates Ennct, Thomas, alia, John Eflrick, ali(/J B ,diM Thomas Walker, alim Morris enlarged'. This edition was printed in three became. This edition was, it claimed, printed by that a printing error had transposed the last two Brian, Juhn Harman Baines Andrew volumes by John Applebee for Charles Marsh John Applebee for James Hodges and sold by letters and that it should have read MDCCXL [17 40] Bird Edward Gt11t , Bird', Ca(,• , &c. %1 0 and dated 1745. I am aware of nine copies, at Charles Corbett. The title­ and not MDCCLX [17 60]. I Barton \Villiam :128 I !. Brinfdcn Matthias least five of which are incomplete. page locates Hodges at 'the do not know whether other llutler J,1111 ,:s Looking- Glass' on London copies of this printing bear c. N T Although more research may modify the details I Bridge and Corbett at 'the this correction but it is OOK Tlmm1~ C Churchi 11 DcllorJh am confident that this broad chronology will stand Addison's Head opposite crucial because it rewrites Ch.ivrn Eli .\t\l.x:th up. St Dunstan's Church in the printing history of the Fleet Street'. These details C ()NV IC TS, book. There was no third Jack Sheppard are impossible to square edition in 1760. What I here is the revised printing history: On the matter of Jack Sheppard. What Hackney with a publication date of had taken to be the third have, as noted above, is the first volume of the 1760 since Applebee, the edition was in fact the lost 1. The first edition was printed and sold by J. 1740 reprint. This should have contained Sheppard printer, is known to have first edition from 1739- Applebee in Bolt Court, Pleet Street; also by (executed 1724) because the criminals are treated died in 1750 and, as far as is 40, and the problem of E Nutt, E. Cook and M. Bartlett at their shops in chronological order and volume 1 runs from known, left no heir to carry Apple bee's involvement at the Royal Exchange; and by A. Dodd at the Captain Kidd (1701) to Jonathan Wild (1725). But on his business. In short, was immediately resolved. Peacock without Temple Bar. It was published he isn't in it. we seemed at this point to in two pocket-size volumes, each with a have a first edition which From Hackney I went to frontispiece, and announced in the London Books of this nature were intended for middle had vanished without trace, the British Library in search Daz!J Post and General Advertiser, 30 November class readers but sometimes, to make them more a second edition dated 1745 of evidence that might and 5 December 1739. I do not know of any affordable to those of limited means, were issued and a third edition which substantiate this deduction. surviving copy of this printing. in parts. A good example is Johnson's Lives of carried an impossible date There is more work to do Plf:lix q1mn j<uJu,11 ,1/iena Ptria,la caµtum. there but a sampling of early 2. Reprint of the first edition. Printed by J. the HighZJ)aymen, published in weekly and monthly of 1760. MDC<.;:-; XXI .x. newspaper advertisements Applebee, for J. Hodges at the Looking-Glass parts during 1733-34. You could buy two sheets l,O.\·DO,\; for twopence every week or, if you couldn't be My mystification was unearthed the publisher's on London Bridge, and sold also by C. Corbett bothered with that, you could collect the book in complete when Sally announcement of the very at the Addison's Head opposite St Dunstan's monthly parts consisting of eight sheets stitched in England, librarian at first edition in 1739. So, Church in Fleet Street. Dated MDCCLX blue paper and priced at eight pence each. Hackney Archives, pointed _ putting everything together, [1 760]: a misprint for MDCCXL [1740j. 4 5 Hackney History 'Lives of the convicts' At first I wondered whether Lives of the Convicts was What we are dealing with here is a printer's gaffe. Not surprisingly many contemporaries found Journal, published pamphlets on Sheppard, Wild issued in some such format and whether Hackney In the turmoil of going to press the printers these developments distasteful.