Henry Mayhew, the son of Joshua Mayhew, a London lawyer, was born in 1812. After being educated at Westminster School, he worked under his father for three years. However, in 1831 he abandoned law for journalism. Between 1831 and 1839 he worked for the journals, Figaro in London, and The Thief. Mayhew also wrote plays such as The Wandering Minstrel (1834) and But However (1838).

In 1841 Mayhew joined with Mark Lemon, a fellow journalist and playwright, to start a a new journal, Punch Magazine. The two men were initially joint-editors and recruited a group of talented writers and illustrators, including Douglas Jerrold, William Wills, John Leech and Richard Doyle.

In 1845 Mayhew resigned from Punch Magazine and concentrated on writing articles on social issues for the Morning Chronicle. Mayhew's collected articles on poverty were eventually published as London Labour and London Poor (1851). Mayhew's investigation into the plight of the poor revealed the impact that unemployment, starvation and disease was having on the working class. Mayhew carried out a similar investigation into prison life for the Morning Chronicle. These articles were eventually published as The Criminal Prisons of London (1862).

Mayhew wrote books on a wide variety of different subjects including novels, The Good Genius (1847) and Whom to Marry (1848), and historical work such as German Life and Manners in Saxony (1864) and The Boyhood of Martin Luther (1865). Henry Mayhew died on 25th July, 1887.