Riotous images: Representations of Joseph Priestley in British prints during the French Revolution

History of Education

Volumn 37, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 585-604

  Clay, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Education; Historical; Images; Political; Religion

Indexed keywords

EID: 47249098491     PISSN: 0046760X     EISSN: 14645130     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00467600802196041     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. John McLachlan, Joseph Priestley Man of Science 1733-1894: An Iconography of a Great Yorkshireman (Braunton: Merlin Books, 1983), 37. McLachlan gives the publisher's name as 'J. Walker', who is almost certainly one of the two John Walkers whom the British Book Trade Index notes as booksellers with business addresses on Paternoster Row in London and who might, in fact, be one and the same man. 'British Book Trade Index', http://www.bbti.bham.ac.uk, University of Birmingham (accessed August 10, 2007). Even with the benefit of twenty-first-century electronic research resources, I have not been able to find an earlier printed depiction of Priestley and I share McLachlan's view that Walker's was the first. Walker's engraver copied a bas-relief profile bust that had been sculpted by William Hackwood and issued in multiples by Wedgwood in 1779. McLachlan, 37, 47-9. Hence, the sitter feces in opposite directions in the print and the medallion. The engraver evidently cut into the copper printing plate the medallion's depiction of Priestley facing to the right. When paper was pressed against the inked copper plate, the resulting image on paper was reversed.
2. Nicholas K. Robinson, Edmund Barke: A Life in Caricature (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 194.
3. Use of the term education during the eighteenth century was very child orientated, according to contemporary dictionaries. For example, see: John Ash, The New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language, (London, 1795), 329 and John Barclay, A Complete and Universal English Dictionary: including not only a full explanation of difficult words and technical terms in all Faculties and professions ... To the whole is added, an outline of ancient and modem history ... A new edition corrected and improved. By Rev. James Barclay (London, 1791), 382.
4. In contemporary parlance, he would have been called a 'natural philosopher', rather than a scientist.
5. John Money, Experience and Identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760-1800, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), 148.
6. For a selection of well-chosen quotes from a variety of Priestley's key writings see: Malcolm Dick, 'The words of Joseph Priestley: some examples', in Joseph Priestley and Birmingham, ed. Malcolm Dick (Studley: Brewin Books, 2005), 114-16.
7. Ruth Watts, 'Joseph Priestley and his influence on education in Birmingham', in Dick, ed., 48.
8. th -century English magazines', in A Millennium of the Book: Production, Design and Illustration in Manuscript and Print, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Winchester: St Paul's Bibliographies, 1994), 125. It is possible that this was the same John Walker who published the Priestley engraving of 1782 (see note 1). Even successful and long lasting periodicals like the Universel [sic] had circulation figures as low as 1750 copies per issue. Alexander, 130. When demand was unexpectedly high for an issue, the publishers had to pay to re-engrave worn out prints. Alexander, 120. Illustrated periodicals remained a cheap way for consumers to collect prints because the publishers were buying in bulk and passing savings on to subscribers. Alexander, 107-33.
9. For a discussion of print prices see: Vic Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-century London (London, Atlantic Books, 2006), 242-245. The relatively well-paid workers in Birmingham at Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory in Handsworth earned around between lis and 20s per week in the 1770s, but day labourers there would take home as little as 4s 6d. John Davis, The Workers of Soho (Birmingham: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1972), 1. While illustrated periodicals were still relatively expensive, they offered consumers a cost-effective way of accessing prints because the publishers achieved economies of scale by commissioning large numbers of an image for binding into their editions. Of course, periodical purchasers lost the element of choice over subject matter and style that was allowed by buying more expensive single sheet prints.
10. John Davis, 2.
11. Gatrell estimates that a quarter of all English households owned books by 1780. Gatrell, 248. Many of Priestley's publications were published in the form of pamphlets, meaning his work could reach even larger audiences. Priestley's books were probably produced in runs of around 1000 copies per edition For a discussion of the size of production runs of books see Michael F. Suarez, 'The Business of Literature: The Book Trade', in A Companion to Literature from Milton to Blake, ed. David Womersley (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 140-1.
12. McLachlan identifies an engraving of Priestley that was published in 1791 in the European Magazine, another in 1792 in the Literary Magazine, and a third in a pamphlet published in 1794. McLachlan, 37-41. I note that a fourth print of Priestley was published in 1790 in Anon, The Christian's Magazine; or, Gospel repository. Being a compendium of doctrinal and experimental religion (London, 1790-92), vol. 1, 89.
13. A caricature is the kind of image that would nowadays be commonly called a 'cartoon'. However, the latter term has a specific meaning in art historical writings, referring to sketches for tapestries, stained glass or, sometimes, paintings. Hence, I use the label 'caricature'.
14. Gatrell, 235 and 286-7. While Gatrell focuses almost exclusively on London's print trade, the British Book Trade Index identifies at least six print sellers in Birmingham in the first half of the 1790s. Furthermore, as the defendant in a 1793 legal case discussed by Gatrell noted, every bookshop in Birmingham had prints displayed in its window. Gatrell, 494, n. 14.
15. For a discussion of pro-reform images see David Bindman, The Shadow of the Guillotine: Britain and the French Revolution (London, British Museum Publications, 1989).
16. Gatrell has argued that the emphasis on prosecuting the selling of radical text, rather than images, related to the better chances of securing witnesses for the latter cases. Gatrell, 493-4.
17. For a discussion of the dissemination of pro-reform texts through corresponding societies see: Money, 224-5. However, as Money has also noted, when, in July 1793, William Belcher appeared in court in Warwick for selling Thomas Paine's radical pro-reform text The Rights of Man, he was also charged with stocking prints mocking King George III. He defended himself by noting that similar goods were available in every bookshop in Birmingham. Money, 133
18. Bindman, 32.
19. Diana Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the reign of George III (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 142.
20. F.W. Gibbs, Joseph Priestley: Adventurer in Science and Champion of Truth (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965), 173.
21. Gay Hill, 'Gunpowder Joe: Priestley's radicalism.', in Dick, ed., 21-30.
22. Priestley's association with revolution might also have been encouraged by his publication of a text that had the word in its title and was in its seventh edition in 1789. Joseph Priestley, A Description of a New Chart Of History. Containing a View of the Principal Revolutions of Empire that Have Taken Place in the World (London, 1789).
23. Bindman, 13.
24. 24Draper Hill, Mr. Gillray: The Caricaturist (London: Phaidon, 1965), 42. Bindman has suggested that the print was initially conceived in 1788, during an early round of controversy relating to the Test Act. Bindman, 84.
25. R.B. Rose, 'The Priestley Riots of 1791', Past and Present, 18 (November 1960): 71.
26. For a discussion of the nationalisation of Church property in France see: Richard Clay, 'Violating the sacred: theft and "iconoclasm" in late eighteenth-century Paris', Oxford Art Journal 26, no. 2 (2003): 1-22.
27. G.M. Ditchfield, 'The Scottish Campaign Against the Test Act, 1790-1791', Historical Journal 23 (1980): 38.
28. For discussion of corresponding networks, see: Money, 219-43.
29. Isaac Kramnick, 'Eighteenth-Century Science and Radical Social Theory: The Case of Joseph Priestley's Scientific Liberalism', Journal of British Studies 25 (January 1986): 4-5.
30. Toseph Priestley, Letters to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, occasioned by his Reflections on the Revolution in France, &c (Birmingham, 1791).
31. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution (New York, P.F. Collier and Sons, 1909-1914), para. 133, http://www.bartleby.eom/24/3/6.html (accessed October 10, 2007).
32. R.E.W. Maddison; Francis R. Maddison, 'Joseph Priestley and the Birmingham Riots', Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 1956, 102.
33. E. Robinson, 'New Light on the Priestley Riots', Historical Journal 3, no. 1 (1960): 74.
34. R.B. Rose, 'The Priestley Riots of 1791 ', Past and Present 18 (November 1960): 68-88.
35. If Gillray, based in London, heard about the riots in Birmingham on, say, 15 July, it takes some time to produce an etching and compositional sophistication. The design has to be worked out, the plate covered with acid-resistant wax, the design etched carefully through the wax to the level of the plate. Acid then must be applied so that it bites into the copper to just the right depth, the wax has to be removed and the plate smeared with ink that has then to be wiped off so it sits only in the indentations cut by the acid. Then the printing process can begin: damp paper has to be pressed onto the plate, once the impression is fixed on the paper, the sheet must be dried and, often, hand-coloured. This printing process has to be repeated for each sheet. Only then can the print be published. This is almost certainly more than four days' work so Gillray's print published on 19 July was almost certainly conceived before the Birmingham riots.
36. Indeed, this elision might explain why the Birmingham rioters, while attacking Nonconformist Protestants' buildings, shouted 'No Popery!' Peter Leather, 'A sorry end: the Priestley riots of 1791', in Dick, ed., 83.
37. A Gillray print featuring Priestley and Paine as sympathisers of the French Revolution was also published in 1792: James Gillray, Tom Paine's Nightly Pest, hand-coloured etching, 26 November 1792 (National Portrait Gallery, D12464). For one of many examples of Frenchmen being depicted as skinny and John Bull as well-built, see Gillray's, French Liberty, English Slavery published on 21 December 1792 (National Portrait Gallery, D12466).
38. Diana Donald has estimated that 200,000 copies of The Rights of Man were in circulation by 1793. Donald, 142.
39. One of the image's possible registers of meaning relies on its audience being aware of a contemporary controversy that developed during September, October and November of 1792 over the Birmingham arms trade. Reports began to spread of a huge surge in production destined for Irish, Scottish and English revolutionary uprisings supported by French revolutionaries who were, allegedly, also trying to buy weapons. Edmund Burke even brandished a dagger, not dissimilar to Paine's, in parliament to dramatise the threat. Money, 229-30. However, this interpretation is mere speculation, given that the precise publication date of the print is unknown and it might have been issued before the controversy started.
40. Joseph Priestley, An appeal to the public, on the subject of the riots in Birmingham, part II (London, 1792), 14.
41. Toseph Priestley, An appeal the public, on the subject of the riots in Birmingham (London, 1791), 77-8.
42. For discussion of radicalism in Birmingham during the 1790s, see: Money, 219-43.
43. Ruth Watts, 'Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)', Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education 24, no. 1 (1994): 3.