28-498: Enon Chapel was a building on Clement's Lane (today St. Clement's Lane) off Aldwych near the Strand in London and it was built around 1823. The upper part was dedicated to the worship of God, with the dead buried in a vault beneath, separated by a board floor. The chapel was notorious for allegations that thousands of bodies had been packed into the vault room in the space of 20 years. When
56-404: A Showman , Enon Chapel was licensed for burials in 1823, which continued until the minister died in early 1842. The vaults beneath the meeting-house were turned into a burial place, which Walter Thornbury's 1887 Old and New London says "soon became filled with coffins up to the very rafters, so that there was only the wooden flooring between the living youth and the festering dead". In 1840 it
84-401: A bricked-over barrel sewer rather than the open sewer described by some witnesses, and noted that any sewer would soon have become blocked if used to dispose of the dead. Upon visiting the building Snow could see none of the "crevices" mentioned by Fox, and he described the reports to the committee as having been "a mass of fictitious horrors". In 1847, George Walker, a prominent surgeon, bought
112-406: A fanatical teetotaler in opposition to Dickens's views of moderation. In Somerset Maugham 's short story "Miss King", Cruickshank's influence is referenced: She wore a large white cotton nightcap (on entering Ashenden has noticed the brown wig on a stand on the dressing-table) tied under the chin and a white voluminous nightdress that came high up in the neck. Nightcap and nightdress belonged to
140-429: A generation he delineated Tories , Whigs and Radicals impartially. Satirical material came to him from every public event – wars abroad, the enemies of Britain (he was highly patriotic), the frolic, among other qualities, such as the weird and terrible, in which he excelled. His hostility to enemies of Britain and a crude racism is evident in his illustrations commissioned to accompany William Maxwell's History of
168-627: A letter in The Times which claimed credit for much of the plot of Oliver Twist . The letter launched a fierce controversy around who created the work. Cruikshank was not the first Dickens illustrator to make such a claim. Robert Seymour who illustrated the Pickwick Papers suggested that the idea for that novel was originally his; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any specific input. The friendship between Cruikshank and Dickens soured further when Cruikshank became
196-426: A mistress named Adelaide Attree, his former servant, who lived close to where he lived with his wife. Adelaide was ostensibly married and had taken the married surname 'Archibold'. Cruikshank's early career was renowned for his social caricatures of English life for popular publications. He achieved early success collaborating with William Hone in his political satire The Political House That Jack Built (1819). In
224-655: A past age and reminded you of Cruickshank's illustrations to the novels of Charles Dickens. In the late 1840s, Cruikshank's focus shifted from book illustration to an emphasis on alcohol temperance and anti-smoking . Formerly a heavy drinker, he now supported, lectured to, and supplied illustrations for the National Temperance Society and the Total Abstinence Society, among others. The best known of these are The Bottle , 8 plates (1847), with its sequel, The Drunkard's Children , 8 plates (1848), with
252-400: A very great body of injurious matter concealed". The group detected none of the reported "effluvia" in the air, putting this down to the "brisk air" of that day, and the fact that some of the party had been smoking. Writing on the subject in 1843, physician John Snow concluded that it would have been impossible to conceal thousands of bodies in the space described. He wrote that the vault had
280-454: A week", and others believed that the vault housed an open sewer carrying the bodies to the Thames. It was said that worshippers breathed in the noxious fumes of rotting flesh from the burial room below for years before the hoard of bodies was discovered. One witness attested to those praying in the church regularly experiencing fainting and sickness due to the fumes. In April 1842, some members of
308-626: Is said, of the reinstatement in the service of certain officers of his corps who some time since had a difference with their Lieutenant-Colonel and were cashiered". The 48th Middlesex merged with the 2nd City of London RVC, also a working-men's unit, composed mainly of printers from the Fleet Street area, and the combined unit had a long history as the City of London Rifles . After he developed palsy in later life, Cruikshank's health and work began to decline in quality. He died on 1 February 1878 and
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#1732869122842336-596: The Burial Act 1852 ( 15 & 16 Vict. c. 85) closed burial grounds in the centre of London, the chapel closed. It later became a theatre and dancing saloon, before being demolished. According to Sanger, the Law Courts now stand on part of the site. The chapel was named for Aenon near Salim (Enon), a place where John the Baptist carried out baptisms . ( John 3 :23) According to George Sanger 's 1910 biography Seventy Years
364-516: The 48th Middlesex RVC (Havelock's Temperance Volunteers). The unit ran into financial difficulties and when Cruikshank was forced to retire due to age, he was replaced as commanding officer by Lt-Col Cuthbert Vickers, a wealthy shipowner. However, the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette of 3 September 1868 reported that Cruikshank had resigned as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Volunteers "in consequence, it
392-974: The Irish rebellion in 1798 (1845) where his lurid depictions of incidents in the rebellion were characterised by the simian -like portrayal of Irish rebels. Among the other racially engaged works of Cruikshank there were caricatures about the "legal barbarities" of the Chinese, the subject given by his friend, Dr. W. Gourley, a participant in the ideological battle around the Arrow War , 1856–60. For Charles Dickens , Cruikshank illustrated Sketches by Boz (1836), The Mudfog Papers (1837–38) and Oliver Twist (1838). He also illustrated Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi (1838), which Dickens edited under his regular nom de plume , "Boz". Cruikshank even acted in Dickens's amateur theatrical company. On 30 December 1871, Cruikshank published
420-583: The ambitious work, The Worship of Bacchus , published by subscription after the artist's oil painting, now in the Tate Gallery, London . For his efforts, he was made vice president of the National Temperance League in 1856. When the invasion scare of 1859 led to the creation of the Volunteer Movement , Cruikshank was one of those who organised Rifle Volunteer Corps (RVCs). At first his unit
448-453: The chapel and at his own expense of £100 had the bodies in the vault removed to Norwood Cemetery where they were reburied in a single grave twelve feet square and twenty feet deep. Writing in 1887, Walter Thornbury describes the excavation of the vault resulting in "a pyramid of human bones [...] exposed to view, separated from piles of coffin wood in various stages of decay", which would go on to fill "four up-heaved van loads". Thornbury claims
476-585: The family business as a caricaturist and illustrator. Cruikshank's early work was caricature; but in 1823, at the age of 31, he started to focus on book illustration. He illustrated the first, 1823 English translation (by Edgar Taylor and David Jardine) of Grimms' Fairy Tales , published in two volumes as German Popular Stories . On 16 October 1827, he married Mary Ann Walker (1807–1849). Two years after her death, on 7 March 1851, he married Eliza Widdison. The two lived at 263 Hampstead Road , north London . Cruikshank had fathered 11 illegitimate children with
504-469: The lease in December 1850, fitting it out as a theatre for pantomime and circus. However, after being informed by the police that George Walker had not finished emptying the vault and that the remains of the minister, amongst others, were still there, Sanger rapidly moved out. New owners of the building covered the existing wooden floor with a single brick floor, in turn covered by a new wooden floor, and opened
532-818: The premises as a "low dancing-saloon". An old bill shows that dancing on the dead was one of the attractions of the place; The scene was caricatured by Cruikshank . 51°30′52″N 0°7′2″W / 51.51444°N 0.11722°W / 51.51444; -0.11722 Aldwych Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.150 via cp1114 cp1114, Varnish XID 473922365 Upstream caches: cp1114 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 08:32:03 GMT George Cruikshank George Cruikshank or Cruickshank ( / ˈ k r ʊ k ʃ æ ŋ k / KRUUK -shank ; 27 September 1792 – 1 February 1878)
560-435: The role of women in the reform movement, portraying them as unfeminine and grotesque. His first major work was Pierce Egan 's Life in London (1821) in which the characters Tom and Jerry, two 'men about town' visit various London locations and taverns to enjoy themselves and carouse. This was followed by The Comic Almanack (1835–1853) and Omnibus (1842). Cruikshank gained notoriety with his political prints that attacked
588-559: The royal family and leading politicians. In 1820 he received a royal bribe of £100 for a pledge "not to caricature His Majesty" ( George IV of the United Kingdom ) "in any immoral situation". His work included a personification of England named John Bull who was developed from about 1790 in conjunction with other British satirical artists such as James Gillray , and Thomas Rowlandson . Cruikshank replaced one of his major influences, James Gillray , as England's most popular satirist. For
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#1732869122842616-469: The same year he produced the now-infamous anti-abolitionist piece The New Union Club . It satirised a dinner party organised by abolitionists with black guests. While this piece was praised as "the finest of G.C.'s caricatures" during the 19th century, it is now viewed as one of the most racist prints of its era. His 1819 print, The Belle Alliance, or the Female Reformers of Blackburn!!!, criticised
644-437: The select committee visited Enon Chapel. They reported that they were prevented from going down into the vault of the building, with a Colonel Fox saying that "I thought, through the crevices, I could perceive bones; there was nothing, at all events, but the planking". On being denied access to the vault, Colonel Acton judged that from the "extreme unwillingness, and violence, indeed, of the keeper of Enon Chapel, that there must be
672-410: The site was visited by six thousand people during this time. This scandal contributed to burial reform in the Burial Act 1852 ( 15 & 16 Vict. c. 85), which closed burial grounds within metropolitan London and allowed the establishment of large cemeteries in the then surrounding countryside in the mid-19th century. Walker sold the chapel on and George Sanger, the circus impresario, briefly took
700-482: Was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth " during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens , and many other authors, reached an international audience. Cruikshank was born in London. His father, Edinburgh -born Isaac Cruikshank , was one of the leading caricaturists of the late 1790s and Cruikshank started his career as his father's apprentice and assistant. His older brother, Isaac Robert , also followed in
728-483: Was alleged to a House of Lords select committee that the remains of "ten or twelve thousand" bodies had been concealed in a vault beneath Enon Chapel. It was said that the chapel's Reverend Howse had offered burials for a low fee of 15 shillings, and that to do this he placed the bodies into a 60-by-40-foot (18 by 12 m) pit under the chapel, possibly using a large amount of quicklime to accelerate their decomposition. One witness attested to "at least twenty interments
756-610: Was originally buried in Kensal Green Cemetery . In November 1878 his remains were exhumed and reburied in St. Paul's Cathedral . Punch magazine , which presumably did not know of his large illegitimate family, said in its obituary: "There never was a purer, simpler, more straightforward or altogether more blameless man. His nature had something childlike in its transparency." In his lifetime he created nearly 10,000 prints, illustrations, and plates. There are collections of his works in
784-625: Was the 24th Surrey RVC , which recruited from working men who were total abstainers and was named 'Havelock's Own' in honour of Major-General Sir Henry Havelock , a hero of the Indian Mutiny and pioneer of Temperance Clubs in the army. However, Cruikshank received little encouragement from the Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey, and was rebuked for crossing into Kent to recruit. Disgusted, he disbanded his unit in 1862 and began anew in Middlesex, organising
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