Charles H. Bennett (illustrator)

Charles Henry Bennett was a British Victorian illustrator who pioneered techniques in comic illustration.

Beginnings

Charles Henry Bennett was born at 3 Tavistock Row in Covent Garden on 26 July 1828 and was baptised a month later in St Paul's, Covent Garden. He was the eldest of the three children of Charles and Harriet Bennett, originally from Teston in Kent. His father was a boot-maker. Little is known of Charles' childhood, although some speculate that he received some education, possibly at St Clement Danes School.
At the age of twenty, Charles married Elizabeth Toon, the daughter of a Shoreditch warehouseman, on Christmas Day 1848, also in St. Paul's Church. Their first son, who they named after Charles, was born a year later and by 1851 the family was settled in Lyon's Inn in the Strand. At the time of their wedding, Charles was attempting to support his family by selling newspapers; however, in the 1851 census three years later he described himself as an artist and portrait painter.
By 1861, Charles and Elizabeth had six children and lived in Wimbledon. Charles, the eldest, was by this time at school, while the youngest, George, was just seven months old.

Early career

As a child, Charles developed a passion for art, drawing for his inspiration the motley crowds he saw daily in the market. His father did not support Charles' artwork and considered it a waste of time.
As an adult, Charles became part of the London bohemian scene, and was a founder member of the Savage Club, each member of which was "a working man in literature or art". As well as socializing over convivial dinners, members of the club published a magazine called The Train. Charles Bennett contributed many illustrations, signed 'Bennett' rather than with his CHB monogram, but the magazine was short-lived.
The mid-nineteenth century saw the launch of many cheap, mostly short-lived periodicals in London, and Bennett contributed small illustrations to several, although it is difficult to identify some of his work because he didn't always sign them with his distinctive "CHB" monogram. Bennet is known to have contributed to The Devil in London, The Penny Trumpet, The Whig Dresser, The Squib, and The Man in the Moon. James Hannay, a novelist, journalist and protégé of Thackeray, founded Pasquin in 1847, followed by The Puppet Show in 1848 and The New Puppet Show in 1849. By 1855, Bennett was better known and was invited to design the masthead and front page cartoon for the first issue of the Comic Times. He also contributed to Diogenes and Comic News as well as mainstream illustrated magazines such as The London Journal, Good Words, London Society, and Every Boy's Magazine. His occasional full-page illustrations appeared in Christmas and New Year editions of The Illustrated London News.

Children’s books

1858 saw the publication of the first of more than a dozen children's books illustrated by Charles Bennett. Old Nurse's Book of Rhymes, Jingles & Ditties was a collection of children's verse with colour illustrations on every page and a frontispiece illustrating ‘Old Nurse at Home.’ Among the children's books that followed were Nine Lives of a Cat with twenty illustrated pages and The Adventurers of Young Munchausen.
Bennett dedicated The Stories that Little Breeches Told to his daughters Harriet and Polly, with a suggestion that he was already ill, as follows:

DEAR HARRIET AND POLLY,
As soon as Little Breeches had told me these stories, I told them to you; but I am afraid I should soon have forgotten them, every one, if you had not so carefully treasured them up. Now when they are in print, and the pictures are all etched on copper-plates, I am made happy indeed, by your kindness in allowing me to dedicate them to you.
And remain,
All that is left of me,
Your affectionate Father,

CHARLES BENNETT

In addition to this dedication, the book has comments from family members after each story.
Similarly, The Sorrowful Ending of Noodledoo was dedicated to Bennett's son George, who had been ill, although "as he got better his temper fell sick." Lightsome and the Little Golden Lady also begins with a family dedication in which Charles thanks "my dear Charley" who had written down the story from his father's telling, a task which had given them both much enjoyment.
In addition to his own children's books, Charles Bennett provided the illustrations for Tom Hood's Jingles and Jokes for the Little Folks as well as for books of fairy tales by Henry Morley and Mark Lemon.

Shadows and Fables

Among Charles Bennett's best known and best loved books were his Shadows series. In Shadow and Substance, Charles Bennett and Robert Barnabas Brough describe a fictional magic lantern which they call the eidolograph. The shadows cast by the eidolograph indicate the true character and personality of the sitter; for example, a fat schoolboy's shadow is portrayed as a snail while Charles Bennett becomes an ass. The collection of shadow illustrations was reprinted several times in colour without the accompanying text and seems to have been something of a best seller. The shadow of a man leaning on a post shows him to be "A Queer Fish" and that of a young woman servant depicts a Black slave.
The Shadows illustrations first appeared in The ''Illustrated Times, which also published his weekly series of Studies in Darwinesque Development in 1863. These circular drawings, in which various animal species evolve into human beings, were published posthumously in the book Character Sketches, Development Drawings and Original Pictures of Wit and Humour'' in 1872.
The most reprinted of Charles Bennett's books has been his illustrated version of Aesop's Fables. First published in 1857, it has reappeared many times, most recently in 1978, with a French translation in 1979.

''Pilgrim's Progress''

Towards the end of the 1850s, Charles Bennett prepared an illustrated version of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, for which he produced more than 120 drawings, including sparely drawn caricatures of all the characters. At first he struggled to get this work published until it came to the attention of Charles Kingsley, who provided a preface for the book, after which Longman accepted it for publication. In his letter to Charles Bennett, Kingsley agreed that an appropriately illustrated version of the book was needed and offered his views on the style to be used. He cautioned against imaginative freedom at the cost of beauty of form and pointed to a strong German element in Bunyan, which should be expressed by a tendency to the grotesque. He concludes the letter by urging the artist to put the visions on paper as they appeared to the mind of the seer himself. "Now we know that Bunyan saw these people in his mind's eye, as dressed in the garb of his own century. It is very graceful and I should keep to it, not only for historic truth's sake, but because in no other way can you express Bunyan's leading idea, that the same supernatural world which was close to old prophets and martyrs was close to him; that the devil who whispered in the ears of Judas, whispered in the ears of a cavalier over his dice, or a Presbyterian minister in his Geneva gown." Perhaps feeling that he was being too prescriptive, Kingsley concluded, "Take these hints as meant, kindly."
Charles Bennett added a small illustration at the end of the preface showing the writer helping the artist up the hill of fame. The two became friends and Charles Bennett visited Kingsley at home in Eversley, where he was the rector, returning home with gifts for Elizabeth from Mrs. Kingsley.
His other two serious books from this period were Quarles’ Emblems and London People: Sketched from Life. Francis Quarles was a seventeenth century poet who was a cupbearer to the future Queen Elizabeth and subsequently secretary to James Usher, the primate of all Ireland, who was best known for his biblical chronology which claimed to establish the date of creation as the night preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC. Quarles' Emblems consisted of a series of paraphrases from the Bible expressed in ornate and metaphorical language, each concluding with an epigram of four lines. Originally popular, Emblems was panned by 17th and 18th century critics but the publication of a new edition illustrated by Charles Bennett and W Harry Rogers indicated that it may still have been popular in the 1800s.
London People:Sketched from Life contains some of Charles Bennett's best illustrations. Co-authored with John Hollingshead, the book brings together sketches from The ''Cornhill Magazine, "designed to exhibit faithful delineations of physiognomies characteristic of different classes of LONDON PEOPLE as they appear, not aiming at humorous exaggeration on the one hand or ideal grace on the other.
In 1865, Charles Bennett contributed a frontispiece and three illustrations to The Reverend John Allan's temperance tale, John Todd and How He Stirred His Own Broth-pot.''

The ''Punch'' years

Charles Bennett’s drawings appeared in Punch from time to time and in 1865 he was invited to join the Punch Council, which included Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks and John Tenniel. By March 1866 Charles was a regular attendee and another member of the Council, Henry Silver, recorded in his diaries some of Charles Bennett’s contributions to discussion and reported that he was deaf in his right ear and smoked cigars. Silver also mentions that Charles was left handed although he sometimes drew with his right hand. In a discussion of recurring nightmares, Shirley Brooks’ was swimming in a sea of butter, while Charles Bennett described how he had to tie up a parcel but was unable to find a piece of string the right length, despite cutting a hundred bits. His regular contributions began in February 1865 at the beginning of a new parliamentary session with a cartoon of Mr. Punch opening parliament. Over the next two years he contributed nearly 200 drawings signed with his characteristic CHB monogram. He specialised in very elaborate initial letters, such as the letter Z at the beginning of Punch's Essence of Parliament in April 1866. He occasionally contributed political cartoons, and in September 1866 he depicted the Pope as a turnip propped up by a musket, about to be knocked away by Napoleon III.
Charles Bennett's bohemian appearance, apparently the result of his financial straits, seems to have been the cause of comment even around the Punch table. In October 1866, therefore, the Council passed the following resolution:

Resolved

• That this meeting deeply sympathises with C. H. Bennett on the state of his hair

• That this meeting appreciates the feeling which detains the said Bennett from the Council until his hair shall have been cut

• That this meeting deplores the impecuniosity which prevents the said Bennett from attending a barber

• That this meeting, anxious to receive the said Bennett to its bosom once again, organizes a subscription to enable him to attend the said barber

• That this meeting, having confidence in Mr. Mark Lemon, entrusts him with the following subscriptions in aid of the above object, and requests him to communicate with the aforesaid Bennett, to the end that he may have his damn hair cut, and rejoin the assembly of the brethren.

This resolution was signed by ten members of the Council, who each contributed one penny by attaching a penny red stamp to the letter. It seems unlikely that the state of his hair was the true reason for Charles's absence from Council meetings, it being more likely that his deteriorating health was already keeping him away. His final attendance at the table was apparently on 12 December 1866 and Henry Silver recorded his absence the following week, but made no further reference to his subsequent presence.