Bradbury and Evans
This website aims to provide an in-depth exploration of the Victorian London printing and publishing house of Bradbury and Evans, printers and publishers for such literary luminaries as Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray and the satirical magazine Punch. On Thursday 31 December 1829 William Bradbury (1799-1869), a printer working from premises in Oxford Arms Passage, Warwick Lane, London, and his brother-in-law William Dent, dissolved their seven year business partnership by mutual consent. Bradbury immediately formed a new partnership with a twenty-six year old printer by the name of Frederick Mullett Evans (1804-1870), a relationship that was to last some thirty-five years until their joint retirements. Their determination, ambition and acute business sense would see them expand their printing firm into publishing for leading Victorian novelists together with proprietorship of Punch Magazine.
Click to enlarge. Detail from Edward Linley Sambourne's illustration 'The Mahogany Tree', drawn to celebrate fifty years of Punch magazine in July 1891. To the left of the statue of Mr Punch as we look is a bust of Frederick Mullett Evans, and to the right is a bust of William Bradbury.
Contents
- William Bradbury's Apprenticeship
- Bradbury and Dent 1821-1829
- Bradbury and Evans - The Early Years
- Bradbury and Evans - Printers for Chapman and Hall
- Bradbury and Evans - Proprietors of Punch Magazine
- Personnel
- William Bradbury
- Frederick Mullett Evans
- William Dent - Bradbury's first business partner
- Charles Hicks - Foreman Printer
- Felix Joyce - Chief Accountant
- Robert Rowen - Under Warehouseman