Disasters Drawn: The Illustrated London News in the Mid-19th Century

Abstract

Herbert Ingram launched a new kind of newspaper in 1842, The Illustrated London News. Its numerous drawn illustrations supported a formula that was rapidly copied in other countries, and always ensured circulation success for Ingram and those who followed him. When we look at some of the drawings made to present the Great Famine in Ireland and, a decade later, the Indian Mutiny, we clearly see that disasters such as starvation, violence, fires, crimes and warfare were the stuff of newsworthiness then as now, and sentimentality was a trusted handmaiden. While the immediate concern of this publication was to purvey an outline of all the news in its weekly issues, a long-term effect was to present the reading public in Britain and North America with stereotypes that helped the burgeoning middle class grapple intellectually with the wealth and diversity of information that was becoming available to them in the modernizing world. Evangelicalism, utilitarianism, industrialization and stereotyping were all part of the process, themes that were at the same time being explored in the novels of Charles Dickens.