Douglas William Jerrold

Douglas William Jerrold (3 January 1803 – 8 June 1857) was an English dramatist, journalist, and writer, best known for satirical wit, socially critical essays, and his close association with the early years of Punch magazine. He belonged to the theatrical and literary world of Victorian Britain, but his career was formed before Victoria’s reign began, in print shops, small theatres, naval surroundings, and the noisy public debates of reform-era London.

Jerrold was born into the theatre. His father, Samuel Jerrold, was an actor and lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook, Kent. In 1807 the family moved to Sheerness, where Douglas spent his childhood and sometimes took child parts on stage, though his father’s profession did not attract him strongly. In December 1813 he joined the guard ship HMS Namur, serving as a midshipman under Captain Charles Austen, Jane Austen’s brother, until the Treaty of Paris in 1815. He saw little of the Napoleonic Wars beyond wounded soldiers from Waterloo, but he kept an affection for the sea.

The peace of 1815 damaged his father’s fortunes, and on 1 January 1816 the family moved to London. Jerrold became a printer’s apprentice, then in 1819 a compositor in the printing office of the Sunday Monitor. Short papers and verses by him had already appeared in inexpensive magazines, and a criticism of the opera Der Freischütz led an editor to ask for more. That request helped make him a professional journalist. The same years also carried him back toward the stage: in 1821, a comedy he had written at age fourteen was produced at Sadler’s Wells Theatre as More Frightened than Hurt.

His fame as a dramatist came in 1829 with Black-Eyed Susan; or, All in the Downs, a three-act melodrama staged at the Surrey Theatre by Robert William Elliston. Its story of naval press gangs, corrupt personnel, innocence, poverty, wealth, and wrongdoing spoke to a Britain still dealing with the effects of the Napoleonic Wars, the Corn Laws, and the reform movement that led to the Reform Act 1832. The play was a great popular success. Elliston made a fortune, T. P. Cooke made his reputation in the role of William, and Jerrold, though he received about £60, had his own name established. He went on to write for Drury Lane and other theatres, managed the Strand Theatre for a time with W. J. Hammond, wrote his only tragedy, The Painter of Ghent, and continued producing comedies until The Heart of Gold in 1854.

Jerrold’s other main stage was journalism. He wrote for many periodicals, including the Monthly Magazine, Blackwood’s, the New Monthly, and The Athenaeum. From the second number of Punch in 1841 until shortly before his death, he was one of the magazine’s sharpest voices. Writing under several pseudonyms, including “Q,” he used satire to attack institutions of the day from a liberal and radical point of view. In Punch he published the comic series Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures, later issued as a book. In 1850, writing as “Mrs Amelia Mouser,” he coined the phrase “the palace of very crystal,” giving Joseph Paxton’s proposed building the name by which the Crystal Palace became known.

In politics Jerrold was a Liberal, with eager sympathy for Lajos Kossuth, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Louis Blanc. In social politics he was especially active, and he often spoke against the horrors of war. Friends remembered him as open and sincere, brisk, sailor-like in frankness, quick to show anger or pleasure, and generous in private life. He died at Kilburn Priory in London on 8 June 1857 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery, with Charles Dickens as a pall-bearer. His words still carry because they joined comedy to moral pressure: he could make readers laugh while forcing them to see injustice plainly.