Thomas Bywater Smithies and the British Workman : temperance education and mass circulation graphic imagery for the working classes, 1855-1883

• Main Author: Murray, Francis Allan
• Published: University of Salford 2007
• Subjects: 178.1
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.490195

This thesis focuses on the British Workman and its proprietor Thomas Bywater Smithies. The British Workman was the most popular and widely distributed of all the illustrated temperance journals issued during the second half of the nineteenth century and yet it has received very little attention from scholars. Smithies' journal was widely recognised for the excellent quality of the wood engravings with which it was illustrated, and the elevating moral tone of the letterpress. This study, therefore, is particularly concerned with an exploration of the ways in which Smithies elected to use illustration as a didactic tool for extending temperance education among the working classes. Chapter One outlines the background to the development of illustrated temperance periodicals in the period up to 1855, while Chapter Two examines the life and character of T. B. Smithies, and looks at the ways in which his interests and beliefs shaped his journal. In Chapters Three and Four, there follows a detailed account of the characteristics that distinguished the British Workman as a pioneering temperance publication, an overview of the processes of production, circulation and distribution, and an examination of the complex mechanisms that contributed to the creation of the first mass-circulation temperance paper. Chapter Five looks at Smithies' use of illustration, in relation to established practices, through a comparative study of the 'road to ruin' temperance narrative as expressed in the British Workman, the extensively circulated Ipswich Temperance Series of tracts, and Joseph Livesey's The Progressionist. Chapter Six explores representations of the working man as part of Smithies' wider reforming temperance agenda, extending many of the issues raised in Chapter Five. In conclusion I consider the impact that Smithies and his journal had on the development of illustrated periodicals post 1860, and propose possible avenues for further research.