William
Hone was born in Bath in 1780. William's
family moved to London in 1783 and his
father found work as a solicitor clerk. The family were devout Congregationalists
and were regular attenders at the Weigh House Chapel. William was
educated at the local dame school and at home by his father. One of
the things that William's father taught him was that Congregationalists,
like other religious dissenters, were persecuted by the Established
Church. This sense of injustice was to remain with him for the
rest of his life.
William developed radical political views at an early age and by the
time he was sixteen he was attending meetings of the London
Corresponding Society. When William joined the leaders of the
group, Thomas Hardy, John
Thelwall and John Horne Tooke had just
been released from prison. William's father became concerned about
his son's political friends and in an attempt to get him away from
London found him a position as a solicitor's clerk in Chatham.
William Hone returned to London in 1800 where he married Sarah Johnson.
By this time Hone had developed a passion for books and with financial
help from his mother-in-law, he opened a book shop in Lambeth. Hone
was more interested in buying books than selling them and within a
couple of years his creditors had forced him out of business. Hone
then went into business with Kidd Wake, a printer who had just served
five years in jail for shouting 'No George, no war' during a demonstration
against George III. This business also
ended in bankruptcy.
Hone remained in contact with his radical friends and in 1810 was
involved in the organisation of the reception given to Sir
Francis Burdett after his release from the Tower of London. He
also began publishing newspapers such as the Traveller and
the Reformist Register. These ventures were unsuccessful and
he then turned to publishing political pamphlets.
This
drawing was produced by George Cruikshank
in 1811. The four men
from left to right are William Jones, the publisher of The Scourge,
George
Cruikshank, William Hone and George Cruikshank's
brother, Robert.
William
Hone began employing a talented young artist called George
Cruikshank to illustrate his pamphlets. In 1815 the two men were
shocked by the case of Elizabeth Fenning, a poor servant girl who
had been sentenced to hang after being found guilty of poisoning her
master and mistress. Hone and Cruikshank believed Fenning was innocent
of the crime and produced a pamphlet entitled The
Maid and the Magpie about the case. Hone wrote the text
and Cruikshank provided the powerful drawings. The pamphlet did not
save Elizabeth Fenning from the scaffold but it did provide Hone with
his first bestseller.
Hone
and Cruikshank continued to work together on a series of pamphlets.
These often expressed radical ideas about politics and religion and
in 1817 William Hone was arrested for publishing the Late
John Wilkes's Catechism, The Sinecurist's
Creed and The Political Litany
Diligently Revised. The Attorney-General initially accused
William Hone of sedition but as he feared that the jury would acquit
him on that charge, it was changed to blasphemy. Hone defended himself
over the three day trial. This included making three separate speeches.
All three speeches were over six hours long and his final one lasted
a full eight hours. The speeches were very entertaining and the jury
rewarded Hone by acquitting him of all the charges.
In
response to the Peterloo Massacre in
1819, William Hone and George Cruikshank
published The Political House That Jack Built.
Hone later recalled he got the idea while reading the House That
Jack Built to his four-year-old daughter. The 24 page pamphlet
contained political nursery rhymes written by Hone and twelve illustrations
by Cruikshank. The Political House That Jack
Built was an immediate success selling over 100,000 copies
in a few months. The two men followed this success with a series of
political pamphlets including The Queen's
Matrimonial Ladder (1819),
The Man in the Moon (1820) and
A Slap at Slop
(1822).
By
the mid 1820s both men appeared to lose interest in politics. George
Cruikshank turned to illustrating novels by writers like Charles
Dickens and Hone concentrated on publishing mainstream books and
pamphlets. Although the demand for Cruikshanks's work grew, Hone's
ventures were unsuccessful. William
Hone
died in 1842.
The Political
House That Jack Built (1819)
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
