Charles Henry Bennett

Artist Info

Charles Henry BennettLondon, 1828 - 1867, London

LC name authority rec.n85145312

LC Heading: Bennett, Charles H. (Charles Henry), 1829-1867

Biography:

Bennett, Charles Henry (1828–1867), illustrator, was born on 26 July 1828 at Tavistock Court, Covent Garden, London, the son of Charles Bennett and his wife, Harriet. He seems to have been self-taught as a draughtsman on wood, but by 1855 his sketches were appearing in Diogenes, a comic paper, and the Comic Times. In 1856 his ‘Studies in Darwinesque development’ and the ‘Shadows’ series of caricatures in Henry Vizetelly's Illustrated Times became very popular. His drawings were also engraved on wood for the Illustrated London News in 1857 and 1866, and the Cornhill Magazine in 1861, and he worked for other popular papers, including Good Words in 1861, London Society from 1862 to 1865, and Comic News between 1863 and 1865, as well as various children's papers including Every Boy's Magazine from 1864 to 1865, and Beeton's Annuals in 1866.

Bennett illustrated several books, the most famous of which was his edition of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1859), published by Longmans thanks to the help of Charles Kingsley. He also illustrated the Fables of Aesop (1858), Proverbs with Pictures (1858–9), London People Sketched from Life (1863), and Quarle's Emblems (1861), which were engraved by Joseph Swain and Edmund Evans. A collection of his earlier illustrations was published as Character Sketches, Development Drawings, and Original Pictures of Wit and Humour (1872). He also wrote and illustrated many books for children, including Nine Lives of a Cat (1860), The Adventures of Young Munchausen (1864), The Sorrowful Ending of Noodledo (1865), and Lightsome and the Little Golden Lady (1866). In collaboration with Richard Doyle, he illustrated Fairy Tales (1865) by Mark Lemon, editor of Punch.

Bennett joined Punch in February 1865, contributing over 230 drawings in the two years before his death, the most famous of which were his parliamentary drawings for the ‘Essence of Parliament’ series. His last illustration for Punch appeared on 23 March 1867, the famous sketch showing Lord John Russell as a cock crowing on an 1832 Easter egg. One of the original members of the Savage Club, Bennett was popular at Punch for his good humour and high spirits.

Although very successful, Bennett's work was not well regarded by his contemporaries—Henry Vizetelly described him as a ‘poor draughtsman’ (Vizetelly, 388–9)—and his caricature portraits, with large heads and tiny bodies, came to seem old-fashioned. He signed his sketches in the corner with the figure of an owl, later carrying a ‘B’in its beak. He died on 2 April 1867 at his home, 2 Caversham Road, Kentish Town, London, after a long illness. He was buried on 8 April at Brompton cemetery. To raise money for his widow, Elizabeth, and eight children, his colleagues at Punch put on a benefit entertainment on 11 May 1867 at the Adelphi Theatre, including the first public performance of Arthur Sullivan's comic operetta Cox and Box, starring the Punch illustrators Sir John Tenniel and George Du Maurier. This was repeated at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, on 29 July 1867.

Anne Pimlott Baker

Sources J. Swain, ‘Charles Henry Bennett’, Toilers in art, ed. H. C. Ewart (1891), 189–208 · S. Houfe, The dictionary of 19th century British book illustrators and caricaturists, rev. edn (1996) · R. K. Engen, Dictionary of Victorian wood engravers (1985) · M. H. Spielmann, The history of ‘Punch’ (1895) · G. White, English illustration, ‘the sixties’: 1855–70 (1897) · E. de Maré, The Victorian woodblock illustrators (1980), 153–4 · H. Vizetelly, Glances back through seventy years: autobiographical and other reminiscences, 1 (1893), 388–9 · Boase, Mod. Eng. biog. · The Times (29 April 1867) · A. Watson, The Savage Club (1907) · IGI · d. cert. · CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1867)

Likenesses C. H. Bennett, self-portrait, engraving, repro. in Ewart, ed., Toilers in art, 201 · C. H. Bennett, self-portrait, watercolour, repro. in Spielman, History of ‘Punch’, 526 · carte-de-visite, NPG

Wealth at death under £200: administration, 10 May 1867, CGPLA Eng. & Wales

Anne Pimlott Baker, ‘Bennett, Charles Henry (1828–1867)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2055/view/article/2118, accessed 23 Oct 2015]