The Illustrated London News - History

History

Printer and newsagent Herbert Ingram moved from Nottingham to London in early 1842. Inspired by how the Weekly Chronicle always sold more copies when it featured an illustration, he had the idea of publishing a weekly newspaper that would contain pictures in every edition. Ingram's initial idea was that it would concentrate on crime reporting, as per the later Illustrated Police News, but his collaborator, engraver Henry Vizetelly, convinced him that a newspaper covering more general news would enjoy greater success.

Ingram rented an office, recruited artists and reporters, and employed as his editor Frederick William Naylor Bayley (1808–1853), formerly editor of the National Omnibus. The first issue of the The Illustrated London News appeared on Saturday 14 May 1842. Its 16 pages and 32 wood-engravings covered topics such as the war in Afghanistan, a train crash in France, a survey of the candidates for the US presidential election, extensive crime reports, an account of a fancy dress ball at Buckingham Palace, theatre and book reviews, and a list of births, marriages and deaths. The newspaper also carried three pages of advertisements for items such as a taxidermy manual, Madame Bernard's treatment for baldness, and Smith's quinine tonic. Ingram hired 200 men to carry placards through the streets of London promoting the first edition of his new newspaper.

Costing sixpence, the first edition sold 26,000 copies. Despite this initial success, sales of the second and subsequent editions were disappointing. However, Herbert Ingram was determined to make his newspaper a success, and sent every clergyman in the country a copy of the edition which contained illustrations of the installation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and by this means secured a great many new subscribers.

Its circulation soon increased to 40,000 and by the end of its first year was 60,000. In 1851, after the newspaper published Joseph Paxton's designs for the Crystal Palace before even Prince Albert had seen them, the circulation rose to 130,000. In 1852, when it produced a special edition covering the funeral of the Duke of Wellington, sales increased to 150,000; and in 1855, mainly due to the newspaper reproducing some of Roger Fenton's pioneering photographs of the Crimean War (and also due to the abolition of the Stamp Act which taxed newspapers), it sold 200,000 copies per week.

By 1863 The Illustrated London News was selling more than 300,000 copies every week, enormous figures in comparison to other British newspapers of the time. Competitors appeared but did not last long; Andrew Spottiswoode's Pictorial Times lost £20,000 before it was sold to Ingram, while Henry Vizetelly, who had quit Ingram to found the rival Pictorial Times, eventually sold it to Ingram, who terminated it.

On 30 October 1875, The Illustrated London News devoted its front-page and five other pages to an article about a reunion of the survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade to celebrate the 21st Anniversary of the Charge. The reunion was organised by a committee chaired by Edward Richard Woodham whose recollections of the charge and those of several others at the dinner were recorded in the article.

Herbert Ingram died on 8 September 1860 in a paddle-steamer accident on Lake Michigan, and he was succeeded as proprietor by his youngest son, William, who in turn was succeeded by his son, Sir Bruce Ingram (1877–1963) in 1900, who remained as editor until his death.

From about 1890 onward The Illustrated London News made increasing use of photographs. The tradition of graphic illustrations continued however until the end of World War I. Often rough sketches of distant events with handwritten explanations, were supplied by observers and then worked on by artists in London to produce polished end-products for publication. This was particularly the case where popular subjects such as colonial or foreign military campaigns did not lend themselves to clear illustration using the limited camera technology of the period. By the 1920s and 1930s the pictures which dominated each issue of the magazine were almost exclusively photographic, although artists might still be used to illustrate in pictorial form topics such as budgetry expenditure or the layout of coal mines.

The Illustrated London News was published weekly until 1971 when it became a monthly, and then bimonthly from 1989 until 1994. From 1994 until production ceased in 2003 it was published just twice a year.