Bradbury and Evans (printers : active 1830-1872)

Bradbury and Evans was founded in Bouverie Street, London in 1830 by William Bradbury (1800-1869) and Frederick Mullett Evans (1803-1870). In 1833 the firm moved to Lombard Street. Initially the firm specialised in legal and parliamentary printing but began printing newspapers and journals, including Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. The firm expanded rapidly and soon employed 200 compositors.

In the autumn of 1841 the newly-established magazine Punch approached Bradbury and Evans for financial assistance. The firm lent Punch £150 and became the magazine's printers before ultimately buying out the editors' and founders' shares and taking ownership of the magazine in 1842. Under Bradbury and Evans Punch's circulation rose to 40,000 copies a week and became the firm's major success.

Bradbury and Evans continued to publish books, including W. M. Thackeray's Vanity Fair, and works by many of the Punch circle: Gilbert à Beckett, Mark Lemon and Francis Burnand. Single works by Wilkie Collins and Anthony Trollope were also published by Bradbury and Evans. The firm's most profitable relationship with an author was with Charles Dickens. Having printed The Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby in serial form between 1836 and 1839, the firm went on to publish Dickens's new work between 1844 and 1859.

It was not all good news; the firm lost a great deal of money when the Daily News, edited by Dickens and established as a Liberal rival to The Times, was a taken over by a rival firm.

Relations with Dickens, hurt by the Daily News affair, continued to sour despite the success of Dickens's weekly magazine Household Words, in which Bradbury and Evans owned a 25% share. When Punch refused to insert a personal statement by Dickens relating to his separation from his wife he bought up the shares in Household Words and closed the magazine. Bradbury and Evans opened a new magazine, Once A Week, to rival Dickens's new venture, All The Year Round. Once A Week started well and attracted writers and illustrators of the calibre of George Meredith, Harriet Martineau, John Everett Millais, and Holman Hunt but it could not maintain its early success and was sold in 1869. Other ventures of the period fared equally disappointingly.

In November 1865 both Bradbury and Evans retired and management of the firm was taken over by their sons William Hardwick Bradbury (1832-1892) and Frederick Moule Evans (1832-1902). The Agnew art dealer family, into which both William Hardwick Bradbury and his sister Edith had married, brought new capital into the firm. The firm was renamed Bradbury, Evans and Co. When Evans left the firm in 1872 a new company, Bradbury, Agnew and Co. was founded.

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : CorporateBody : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000089.0x00001f