Augustus Mayhew

Artist Info

Augustus MayhewLondon, 1826 - 1875, London

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n82228297

Mayhew, Augustus Septimus (1826–1875), writer, was born in London on 27 September 1826, the seventh and youngest son of Joshua Dorset Joseph Mayhew (d. 1858), attorney, of 26 Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, and Mary Ann Fenn, about whom nothing else is known. When the sons were living at home, the family lived at 7 Fitzroy Square. Augustus was the brother of Henry Mayhew (1812–1887) and Horace Mayhew (1816–1872). Like his brothers Augustus devoted himself to literature and journalism from an early age, and he collaborated with Henry in several literary projects. As ‘the brothers Mayhew’ they produced six comic novels between 1847 and 1850 illustrated by George Cruikshank, Kenny Meadows, and Hablot Browne or ‘Phiz’. Most of these satirized the pretensions of the middle classes, the best-remembered being The Greatest Plague of Life, or, The Adventures of a Lady in Search of a Good Servant (1847), which displays strong powers of social observation. It apparently sold more copies than any other serial since Pickwick. Other titles include Whom to Marry and How to Get Married (1848) and Fear of the World, or, Living for Appearances (1850), which includes a very effective portrayal of a family going bankrupt.

During the 1840s and 1850s Augustus Mayhew was also involved with his brother Henry in several other projects: he did illustrations and some writing for the Comic Almanac from 1848 to 1850, when Henry was editing it, and the two collaborated in several schemes to make money, one of which was a scientific lecture tour in 1849 which failed and resulted in Augustus being imprisoned for debt in Jersey. Indeed, the two shared rustication to avoid creditors several times in the 1840s and 1850s. Augustus also spent a few years in Paris as an art student.

More importantly, between 1849 and 1852 Augustus assisted Henry in the investigations both for the ‘Labour and the poor’ series in the Morning Chronicle and the subsequent London Labour and the London Poor. He served as one of Henry's stenographers when Henry interviewed various workers and street sellers, but Augustus did some interviews himself and also wrote them up, in particular the section on crossing-sweepers, in volume 2 of London Labour and the London Poor, and ‘The night at rat catching’ in volume 3. These interviews led to his best novel, Paved with Gold, or, The Romance and Reality of the London Streets, in 1858, which began as a joint project with Henry but which, after four numbers, was Augustus's alone. This novel traces the life of a young boy from the streets to a respectable life. His other novels include Kitty Lamere, or, A Dark Page in London Life (1855), another product of his contributions to London Labour and the London Poor, and Faces for Fortunes (1861); The Finest Girl in Bloomsbury, a comic tale of ambitious love (1861); and Blow Hot, Blow Cold, a love story (1862).

With Henry Sutherland Edwards Mayhew was joint author of six convention farces and comic dramas, among them The Poor Relation (1851), My Wife's Future Husband (1851), A Squib for the Fifth of November (1851), The Goose with the Golden Eggs (1859), and The Four Cousins (1871). He was on the staff of the Illustrated Times in the 1850s, and served as a somewhat unconventional special correspondent for the William Palmer poisoning trial in 1856.

In 1858 Mayhew made a trip to Germany with George Augustus Sala and Henry Vizetelly, as charmingly recounted by Sala in Make your game, or, The adventures of the stout gentleman, the slim gentleman, and the man with the iron-chest (1860) and illustrated with several sketches of Mayhew as ‘the stout gentleman’. Sala also wrote an affectionate dedication of his Twice around the Clock (1864) to Mayhew. In fact, all contemporary accounts of Mayhew are affectionate—he was known as ‘the dear child’—noting his high spirits, his light-heartedness, and his sense of fun, qualities that did not appear to lessen as he grew older. He was, Vizetelly said, ‘the merriest of men and pleasantest of companions’ (Vizetelly, 2.48).

When his father died in 1858 Mayhew was left financially secure, though contemporary accounts indicate that he ran through much of his money fairly thoroughly. He married Laura Stanton, daughter of George Stanton, at St Giles and St George on 15 July 1858, almost immediately after his father's death in January—though according to Mayhew's will his family remained opposed to his wife. They had one son, Reginald Frederick, born on 15 December 1861.

At the time of his marriage Mayhew lived at 8 South Crescent off Tottenham Court Road, and at his death at 7 Montpelier Row, Twickenham. He died aged forty-nine on 25 December 1875 in the Richmond Infirmary, where he had gone for an operation for a hernia. He was buried in Barnes cemetery on 30 December and was survived by his wife.

Anne Humpherys

Sources

H. Vizetelly, Glances back through seventy years, 2 (1893) · H. S. Edwards, Personal recollections (1900) · A. Humpherys, ‘Introduction’, in A. Mayhew, Paved with gold (1971) · G. A. Sala, Make your game (1860) · The Era (2 Jan 1876) · The Academy (1 Jan 1876) · The Times (28 Dec 1875) · The Times (30 Dec 1875) · application to the Royal Literary Fund, 9 June 1849, BL, 1077/43, ?96 · private information (2004) [L. M. Coumbe, ‘The Mayhew brothers’, unpubd MS] · Men of the time (1856) · A. Humpherys, Travels into the poor man's country: the work of Henry Mayhew (1977) · G. Hodder, Memories of my time (1870) · m. cert. · d. cert.