Thomas distinguished The Graphic from the dominant Illustrated London News by maintaining higher artistic standards for his illustrations and giving creative freedom to his draughtsmen.Department of Fine Arts and Humanities, University of Alberta
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The Graphic, founded by artist and social reformer, William Luson Thomas, appeared on 4 December 1869. Initially, it was a competitor of The Illustrated London News (ILN), but it ultimately became one of the ILN’s sister publications. The Graphic reflected the conservatism and staunch imperialism of Britain’s ruling classes. Yet Thomas’s social conscience and professional vision ensured that the paper differed from more right-leaning titles in British Illustrated Periodicals, 1869–1970, such as The Sketch and The Sphere. Innovatively, The Graphic drew attention to poverty, homelessness, and public health—Thomas encouraged his illustrators to wander London in search of authentic scenes and subjects. This collection collates over 90,000 images from almost 3,500 issues of The Graphic, published between December 1869 and April 1932.
The Graphic featured articles on politics, international relations, religion, and science. It played an important role in the development of the arts, printing innovative literature, theatre reviews, and some of the most beautiful illustrations in contemporary print media—the Victorian critic Harry Quilter remarked upon “the real change that The Graphic artists effected in illustrated journalism”. Vincent van Gogh was much influenced by the strain of socially-conscious art that appeared in the paper.
The Graphic published the work of celebrated writers and artists, including the pioneering painter, director, and composer, Hubert Herkomer; the satirical and fantastical illustrator, Sidney Herbert Sime; the distinguished sculptor, Malvina Hoffman; the pre-eminent Romantic author, Victor Hugo; and the celebrated English novelist and poet, Thomas Hardy. Given the quality and quantity of its artistic content, its wide-ranging commentary, and its vivid and determinedly-realistic depictions of everyday life (at home and abroad), this extensive collection captures the dramatic transformations that occurred within British society throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It will be of value to students and researchers interested in British cultural, social, and political history; the history of art; the history of print media; and colonial history.
"The success of The Graphic caused the most extraordinary movement"—W. L. Thomas (1888)
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Prior to being published in book form, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles was serialised in The Graphic (image 9). It appeared weekly between July and November 1891. Each instalment featured illustrations by Professor Hubert Herkomer and his pupils.
The Graphic reported extensively upon Irish affairs—“How to render Ireland contented and happy is the great political question of the hour” as the author of “Irish Turf Carriers” proclaimed. This article (image 1) reflects upon the failure of an optimistic Victorian vision: utilising Ireland’s reserves of peat to fuel the island’s social, economic, and political regeneration.
Following the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, Egyptologist Howard Carter began the exploration of the pharaoh’s burial chamber on 16 February 1923. This article (image 8) details the artefacts that were removed from the tomb, such as parts of one of Tutankhamun’s chariots and an Ushabtiu figure.
The social realist style of art was embraced by Luke Fields; he depicted the destitute of London in order to prompt social reform. Fields forged an illustrious career and was knighted by King Edward VII in 1906. In this illustration (images 9 and 10) Fields portrayed people applying for tickets to sleep in a workhouse.
Like other ILN-owned titles of the period, The Graphic was supportive of the British monarchy and the Empire. It devoted much attention to events and social conditions in Ireland, typically expressing opposition to demands for Home Rule and independence. The paper often exoticised non-European locations and cultures.
Despite its pro-establishment ethos, The Graphic drew attention to poverty and inequality. In an early issue, published on 18 December 1869, it proclaimed that “poverty is a sad lot for people of all ages. It is sad for those who can help themselves; it is still more sad for those whom tender age makes necessarily dependent. And when to poverty is added not only childhood but sickness, the sufferer becomes indeed a subject for sympathy.”
Contributors to The Graphic were often at the forefront of emerging artistic movements. In the 1870s the paper published the work of artists such as Luke Fildes and Hubert Herkomer, described by the historian Barry Milligan as “the mavericks…of a new social realism” (Milligan, 2016). Encouraged by W. L. Thomas, these artists sought to capture everyday life in Britain as experienced by its poorest inhabitants, thereby raising awareness of social injustices. This approach proved influential — Van Gogh admired the paper’s ground-breaking depictions of the lives of the poor and Fildes and Herkomer went on to achieve notable success.
[NB: Barry Milligan, “Luke Fildes’ ‘The Doctor’, Narrative Painting, and the Selfless Professional Ideal’, Victorian Literature and Culture, 44, no. 3 (2016): 641−668, 659]
Due to its longevity and the eclectic nature of its coverage, The Graphic yields key insights into many of the most significant changes that occurred in Britain (and the wider world) throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, it contains extensive commentary on the participation of women in electoral politics following the fight for female suffrage, on the increasing presence of women in the British workforce, and on the greater levels of access to higher education that were attained by women during the lifetime of The Graphic.
The Graphic kept its readership abreast of the latest developments in science and technology. By the 1920s it was documenting the revolutionary impact of refrigerators upon the domestic sphere, praising the invention of more sophisticated traffic-control systems for urban centres, and showing how skyscrapers were transforming cityscapes.
Like many ILN-owned titles, The Graphic had a conspicuously global outlook. It reported on conflicts and uprisings that broke-out around the world, such as the Carlist Revolt in Spain (1872), the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the Anglo-Egyptian War (1882), the Boer War (1899–1902), and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). The Graphic published detailed reports on these conflicts, often dispatching illustrators to the field.
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