LIBRARY SCHOOL LIBRARY 3CH00L THE STORY OF THE HOUSE OF CASSELL JOHN CASSELL THE STORY OF THE HOUSE OF CASSELL With Twent>' Illustrations \ CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Torosto and Mdbourfic 1922 SCHOOL SCHOOL FOREWORD The House of Cassell, now nearly eighty years old, holds a unique phice among English publishing houses. It was the pioneer of some important movements—the bringing of educational literature within reach of the mass of English people, the serial publication of great books, and the modern development of illustration in both books and periodical publications. It has grown from small begin- nings into a huge institution whose name is familiar all over the world. The history of the House of Cassell falls into four epochs. The first was that in which John Cassell's in- dividuality counted for everything, and ran from his vague beginnings as a publisher in the early 'forties to his death in 1865. The second was the eighteen years of George William Petter and Thomas Dixon Galpin's supremacy, from 1865 to 1883. The third, dating from the formation of the Company in 1883, was chiefly dominated by the personality of Sir Wemyss Reid, the general manager from 1887 to 1905. The last epoch began with the appointment in 1905 of Sir Arthur Spurgeon, the present general manager, and has been noteworthy for a complete reorganization of the business on modern lines and the restoration of its old prosperity and activity, which had been somewhat dimmed during the latter years of the nineteenth century. The records here presented owe much to the collabora- tion of various members of the staff of Cassell's, past and present. The narrative has drawn largely upon their recollections. mko:'.(;g3 CONTENTS PART I JOHN CASSELL CHAPTER PACK 1. Factory Hand and Temperance Reformer . 3 2. From Tea Merchant to Publisher ... 12 3. La Belle Sauvage ...... 19 4. The Growth of Educational Literature . 25 5. John Cassell and Lord Brougham and Others . 35 6. The Taxes on Knowledge—American Experiences 43 7. The Last Years 54 PART II THE HOUSE OF CASSELL 1. Cassell, Petter and Galpin 63 2. Some Editors and Arnold-Forster 71 3. Departmental Managers 80 4. The New Order .... 85 5. Forty Years of Illustration 96 6. Magazines and Periodicals . 114 7. The First Halfpenny Newspaper, and Some Others ..... 147 8. Serials and Books 157 " 9. The Novelists : R. L. S," and Others 207 10. The Machinery at La Belle Sauvage 221 11. The Social Side of La Belle Sauvage 230 Index ...... 237 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS John Cassell Frontispiece FACINS PAGE La Belle Sauvage Inn .... 18 Coach Emerging from La Belle Sauvage Yard 22 Relief from Old La Belle Sauvage (showing the Crest of the Cutlers' Company) . 24 The Entrance to La Belle Sauvage Yard in 1782 24 George William Petter 64 Thomas Dixon Galpin 66 Sir Wemyss Reid 70 Rt. Hon. H. O. Arnold-Forster 78 W. E. Henley 98 Sir J. E. Millais 110 Sir Luke Fildes, K.C.V.O., R.A. 110 Henry Morley 160 Dean Farrar 160 Robert Louis Stevenson . 208 Sir Rider Haggard, K.B.E. 216 Col. Burnaby 216 H. G. \Vells 218 Fleet Lane View of Cassell and Company's Premises 222 La Belle Sauvage Yard, 1921 . 228 PART I JOHN CASSELL CHAPTER I FACTORY HAND AND TEMPERANCE REFORMER John Cassell was born on January 23, 1817, and died on April 2, 1865. Though he accomphshed many things, the principal achievement of his forty-eight years was the building of the publishing house that bears his name. Cassell was a living paradox. He surpassed proba- bility, defied heredity, rose superior to environment. A poor boy without material resources, he came to deal in extensive enterprises and control what were, in his day, large capitals. Uneducated himself, he did more than most men of his time to promote the higher educa- tion of the English masses. The son of a publican, he was an ardent teetotaller and a powerful advocate of temperance reform. A mechanic by training, he devoted his life to purely intellectual labour. Hardly anything John Cassell did was what he might have been expected to do. Little is known of his family. His great-grandfather was a Worcestershire man who had migrated into Kent. He died at Bcckcnham in 1760. William Cassell, his son, married a farmer's daughter, a Miss Matthews, whose family had occupied the same homestead for more than a century. They were blessed with many children, of whom the youngest, Mark, broke away from the Kentish associations and from agriculture, and became the land- lord of the Ring o' Bells Inn at No. 8 Old Churchyard, Hunt's Bank, Manchester. He had chosen his wife, how- ever, from the rural stock ; her father was a farmer in the Nuneaton country. 3 : The Story of the House of Cassell This Boniface of an industrial suburb was John Cassell 's father, and it was at the Ring o' Bells that John Cassell was born. The family enjoyed fair comfort during the first ten years of the boy's life; but Mark Cassell, disabled by a fall, became a helpless invalid, lingered so for three years, then died. Mrs. Cassell courageously faced the heavy burden of maintaining the family. She was a capable and resourceful woman, who had somehow acquired skill in upholstery, and at that craft she con- trived to earn a living. But so laborious a life left her little time for the care of her son, who went to factory work. His " education " had been meagre. It is thought that before his father's death he had attended one of the schools of the British and Foreign Society, then largely used by the children of Nonconformist parents. The little knowledge thus acquired was eked out at a Sunday school conducted by the Rev. Dr. McAll. And this was the sum of his schooling. The lot of the unlettered poor in the Lancashire of the early nineteenth century was vividly described by Thomas Whittaker*, a friend of Cassell in his youth " The food had to come through the fingers of the family —as soon as a shilling or two could be earned by any of us we had to help. My term of toil began when just over six years old, and from that moment continued, either in print shops or cotton mills. The hours were long and the work hard, so that often, when in the midst of my work, I fell fast asleep, standing bolt upright, and was not infrequently awakened by the man whose help I was knocking me down like i dead fish on the floor. I had to rise not later than five, walk a mile to the mill, where I was kept going with very little intermission for meals. I did not get home until 8 p.m., when I would drop asleep from sheer exhaustion and weariness." Cassell entered on this Calvary probably at a little earlier age than Whittaker, and soon revolted from it. He first tried working for Mr. Phythian, who made tape * Thomas Whittaker, a well-known Temperance advocate, eometime Mayor of Scarborough. 4 The Carpenter's Shop and the like things, but being discontented, he went on to a more genteel manufacturer of velveteen, who paid higher wages,—and was still discontented. A boy of lively spirit and curious mind, he loathed the dreary prospect of life as a factory hand. He detested the monotonous work, hated the dull confinement of the mill, was oppressed by the sordid conditions of the mean streets about him. By the age of sixteen he had abandoned it all and set out on a desultory search for more pleasant employment. By accident he became a carpenter. His Odyssey in the streets of Manchester brought him to a carpenter's shop, where he stood watching the men make the plain deal tables used in artisans' kitchens. Presently he re- marked that he thought he could make a table if they would let him try. With mingled good-humour and scorn the master carpenter invited him to begin. He took off his coat and set to work. It was said by un- critical friends that his first table was almost as good as the work of an old hand. But the master carpenter perceived that he had a youth of energy, determination and ideas to deal with, and offered him a job at the bench at weekly wages. Before long he found carpentering hardly more satis- fying than tape making as an outlet for his abounding mind. Cassell was a born reformer—an apostle of dis- content with things as they are, an evangelist of better things. It happened that the first reforming movement which caught him up and bore him along was temperance. Livesey's " teetotal " campaign had just begun. The new doctrine of total abstinence as the only real cure for tlie social evil of drink was not easy to practise nor popular to preach. For the working masses tea and coffee were at almost prohibitive prices; milk was a luxury. Beer was the cheapest drink, the most attainable ; even children were suckled on small ale. The crusader against beer had these practical obstacles to face, and his con- 5 : The Story of the House of Cassell verts were called upon for high self-denial and strength of will. None the less, the movement grew, and it was fortified by the support of a number of medical men, who added scientific physiological arguments to the crusaders' moral and religious pleas.