Rudolph Ackermann (20 April 1764 in Stollberg, Electorate of Saxony – 30 March 1834 in Finchley, London) [1] was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman.
He attended the Latin school in Stollberg, but his wish to study at the university was made impossible by lack of financial means, [2] and he therefore became a saddler like his father.
He worked as a saddler and coach-builder in different German cities, moved from Dresden to Basel and Paris, and then, 23 years old, settled in London. He established himself in Long Acre, the centre of coach-making in London and close to the market at Covent Garden. His extraordinary business instinct, as well as his flair for design and talent for self-promotion, won him the £200 contract to design the ceremonial coach for the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare. After this he designed The Royal Sailor, an 8-wheel omnibus that ran between Charing Cross, Greenwich and Woolwich. [3]
Ackermann then moved to Little Russell Street where he published Imitations of Drawings of Fashionable Carriages (1791) to promote his coach-making. Other publications followed. An able artist in his own right, [4] in 1795 he established a print-shop and drawing-school at 96 Strand. [5] Ackermann set up a lithographic press and began a trade in prints. [1] He later began to manufacture colours and thick carton paper for landscape and miniature painters. Within three years the premises had become too small and he moved to 101 Strand, in his own words "four doors nearer to Somerset House", the seat of the Royal Academy of Arts. [3]
Between 1797 and 1800 Ackermann rapidly developed his print and book publishing business [6] bringing together wide variety of talented artists and printmakers including Thomas Rowlandson, Isaac Cruikshank, John Bluck, Theodore Lane, Henry Singleton, Maria Cosway, F. J. Manskirchten, J. C. Stadler, J. H. Schultz, Henri Merke, Thomas Sutherland, Nicholas Heidelhoff, Augustus Pugin, and G. M. Woodward in numerous projects to produce both individual prints as well as illustrations for books and magazines, encompassing many different genres including topography, caricature, portraits, transparencies and decorative prints.[ citation needed ]
In 1809 he applied his press to the illustration of Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions , which appeared monthly until 1829, by when forty volumes had appeared. The Repository documented the changing classicising fashions in dress and furniture of the Regency; Thomas Rowlandson and other distinguished artists were regular contributors. William Combe and Rowlandson's parody, Dr Syntax in search of the Picturesque first appeared in parts in Ackermann's Poetical Magazine and was then reissued as a bestselling separate book. Ackermann also published Rowlandson's masterpiece The English Dance of Death (2 volumes 1816). He introduced from Germany [7] the fashion of the once popular Literary Annuals, beginning in 1823 with Forget-Me-Not ; and he published many illustrated volumes of topography and travel, including The Microcosm of London (3 volumes, 1808–1811), Westminster Abbey (2 volumes, 1812), [8] The Rhine (1820), [9] The Seine (1821), [10] and The World in Miniature (43 volumes, 1821–1826). [1]
An inventor and innovator, he was important as a carriage designer and patented the Ackermann steering geometry. [11] In 1801 he patented a method for rendering paper and cloth waterproof and erected a factory in Chelsea to make it. [12] He was one of the first to illuminate his own premises with gas. [13] Indeed, the introduction of lighting by gas owed much to him. [1]
During the Napoleonic wars, Ackermann was an energetic supporter of the Allied cause and made significant contributions to British propaganda through his publication of anti-Napoleonic prints and military manuals. He became a naturalised British citizen in March 1809. [14] After the Battle of Leipzig, Ackermann collected nearly a quarter of a million pounds sterling for the German relief effort. [1]
As one of the pioneers of modern publishing methods, Ackermann developed an international distribution network for his publications and came to have significant commercial interests in South America. [15] The business he founded in London flourished throughout the 19th century under the management of his descendants. [16] He was buried at St. Clement Danes in the Strand, London.
Pierce Egan (1772–1849) was a British journalist, sportswriter, and writer on popular culture. His popular book Life in London, published in 1821, was adapted into the stage play Tom and Jerry, or Life in London later that year, which became the first play to have a continuous run of 100 performances in London while at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End.
The Regency era of British history is commonly described as the years between c. 1795 and 1837, although the official regency for which it is named only spanned the years 1811 to 1820. King George III first suffered debilitating illness in the late 1780s, and relapsed into his final mental illness in 1810; by the Regency Act 1811, his eldest son George, Prince of Wales, was appointed prince regent to discharge royal functions. When George III died in 1820, the Prince Regent succeeded him as George IV. In terms of periodisation, the longer timespan is roughly the final third of the Georgian era (1714–1837), encompassing the last 25 years or so of George III's reign, including the official Regency, and the complete reigns of both George IV and his brother and successor William IV. It ends with the accession of Queen Victoria in June 1837 and is followed by the Victorian era (1837–1901).
Thomas Rowlandson was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social and political satires, as well as a large number of illustrations for novels, humorous books, and topographical works. Like other caricaturists of his age such as James Gillray, his caricatures are often robust or bawdy. Rowlandson also produced highly explicit erotica for a private clientele; this was never published publicly at the time and is now only found in a small number of collections. His caricatures included those of people in power such as the Duchess of Devonshire, William Pitt the Younger and Napoleon Bonaparte.
George Cruikshank or Cruickshank 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.
William Combe was a British miscellaneous writer. His early life was that of an adventurer, his later was passed chiefly within the "rules" of the King's Bench Prison. He is chiefly remembered as the author of The Three Tours of Doctor Syntax, a comic poem, illustrated by artist Thomas Rowlandson's colour plates, that satirised William Gilpin. Combe also wrote a series of imaginary letters, supposed to have been written by the second, or "wicked" Lord Lyttelton. Of a similar kind were his letters between Swift and "Stella". He also wrote the letterpress for various illustrated books, and was a general hack.
Augustus Charles Pugin was an Anglo-French artist, architectural draughtsman, and writer on medieval architecture. He was born in Paris, then in the Kingdom of France, but his father was Swiss, and Pugin himself was to spend most of his life in England.
The Great Synagogue of London was a former Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in the City of London, England, in the United Kingdom. The synagogue was, for centuries, the centre of Ashkenazi life in London. Built north of Aldgate in the 17th century, it was destroyed during World War II, in the Blitz.
Henry Thomas Alken was an English painter and engraver chiefly known as a caricaturist and illustrator of sporting subjects and coaching scenes. His most prolific period of painting and drawing occurred between 1816 and 1831.
Isaac Cruikshank was a Scottish painter and caricaturist, known for his social and political satire.
George Murgatroyd Woodward (1765–1809), more commonly known as George 'Moutard' ("Mustard") Woodward, was an English caricaturist and humor writer. He was a friend and drinking companion of Thomas Rowlandson.
Lieutenant-Colonel James Burton was an English property developer. He was the most successful property developer of Regency and of Georgian London, in which he built over 3000 properties in 250 acres. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says that Burton was "the most successful developer in late Georgian London, responsible for some of its most characteristic architecture".
Frederic Shoberl (1775–1853), also known as Frederick Schoberl, was an English journalist, editor, translator, writer and illustrator. Shoberl edited Forget-Me-Not, the first literary annual, issued at Christmas "for 1823" and translated The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
Forget-Me-Not was an illustrated British annual published by Rudolph Ackermann. It was the first literary annual in English and it was edited by Frederic Shoberl from its launch in 1822. A junior version appeared in 1828.
George Daniel (1789–1864) was an English writer of miscellaneous works and book collector.
William Henry Pyne was an English writer, illustrator and painter, who also wrote under the name of Ephraim Hardcastle. He trained at the drawing academy of Henry Pars in London. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790. He specialized in picturesque settings including groups of people rendered in pen, ink and watercolour. Pyne was one of the founders of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1804.
The twelve-volume Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum is the primary reference work for the study of British satirical prints of the 18th and 19th century. Most of the content of the catalogue is now available through the British Museum's on-line database.
John Gendall was a British painter known particularly for his landscapes of Devon. Gendall was involved in the early use of lithography in London. He was born and died in Exeter, where he assisted with the creation of the museum and the university.
Edward Gyfford or Gifford was a British architect and surveyor known for his two volumes of designs for small buildings that were published in 1806 and 1807. He also produced architectural drawings that were engraved for David Hughson's description of London (1805–1809).
Life in London – in full, Life in London; or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., and his elegant friend, Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis – is a book by the author and journalist Pierce Egan, first published in 1821. It depicts the progress through London of two young men and their associates, encountering both high- and low-life. The book has coloured illustrations by George and Robert Cruikshank, which were much admired at the time and subsequently.
The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror was a British fortnightly magazine of humorous and satirical prints, first issued in 1806 by London publisher Thomas Tegg, and edited by George Woodward, the comic author and caricaturist, upon whose designs many of its prints were originally based. The British artist Thomas Rowlandson was a leading contributor and took over its direction after Woodward's death in 1809. The magazine's lively coloured designs by leading caricaturists of the day and comparatively low pricing were an immediate success and Tegg continued to publish the magazine until 1819. Tegg also reissued back numbers as bound volumes; prints from these volumes survive in quite large numbers and are among the best known surviving Georgian social caricatures.
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