Bewick

THOMAS BEWICK (1758 - 1828)

The great wood-engraver was born in Cherryburn, and the freshness of his work owes a great deal to the sights of his Tyne valley childhood. A bust marks the site behind the cathedral where he and the Beilbys worked in Newcastle.

The success of Bewick’s General History of Quadrupeds (1790) encouraged him to begin the History of British Birds and the later Fables of Aesop, all illustrated with delightful miniatures of birds, animals and human figures. Bewick illustrated many other publications and was admired by Wordsworth (‘Oh now that the genius of Bewick were mine’), Charles Kingsley, John Ruskin, who thought him the equal of Holbein and Turner, and Thomas Carlyle. The latter envied Bewick’s situation close to nature, as opposed to his own desperate attempts to shut out the noise of London - ironically even that of the local birds (‘demon fowl‘). Thomas Hood, Maria Edgeworth and George Meredith all refer to Bewick, while Charlotte Brontë wrote a poem about him - and the exciting book mentioned at the beginning of Jane Eyre is Bewick’s History of British Birds. Bewick spent many late summer holidays at Tynemouth and began his famous Memoir there in November 1822. It is a vivid record of his childhood and his life as a craftsman. It also includes a good deal of sensible meditation on politics, education and religion, no doubt reflecting the talk at his favourite haunts in Newcastle, like the Fox and Lamb and Swarley’s Club in Groat Market - ‘Newcastle’s House of Lords’. Bewick himself remarked: ‘The majority of men do not reason, they ruminate.’ He also frequented the Blue Bell and the Newsroom in the Head of Side, where his cronies included John Mitchell, editor of the Tyne Mercury, Ralph Crawford, shoemaker, Joseph Bulmer, builder and Count Raymond, French teacher and fencing master. Bewick also record a one-sided fight with his friend the utopian writer Thomas Spence (q.v.).

Bewick had been to London as a young man but, despite favourable prospects, took an intense dislike to the place and returned after nine months. He despised ‘the porrige of outside show’ and writes in a letter of 1776: ‘Tho I might allway continue to meet with the greatest encouragement imajinable - yet wou’d I rather live in both poverty and insecurity in Ncastle. The Lord Mayor show - and all the numerous shows to be seen in London may give a momentary satisfaction - cannot afford me half the pleasure - which I allways felt in my excurtions... thro the pleasant woods to Eltringham...’

Bewick lived at various times in Pudding Chare, the Forth and, after 1812, in Gateshead where his residence is commemorated on what is now the main post office in West Street. His last engraving shows a funeral procession winding slowly down from Cherryburn to the bridge across the Tyne. Bewick is buried in the churchyard at Ovingham. Bewick’s Swan was named in his honour shortly after his death.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
THOMAS BEWICK (1758 - 1828) The great wood-engraver was born in Cherryburn, and the freshness of his work owes a great deal to the sights of his Tyne valley childhood. A bust marks the site behind the cathedral where he and the Beilbys worked in Newcastle. The success of Bewick’s General History of Quadrupeds (1790) encouraged him to begin the History of British Birds and the later Fables of Aesop, all illustrated with delightful miniatures of birds, animals and human figures. Bewick illustrated many other publications and was admired by Wordsworth (‘Oh now that the genius of Bewick were mine’), Charles Kingsley, John Ruskin, who thought him the equal of Holbein and Turner, and Thomas Carlyle. The latter envied Bewick’s situation close to nature, as opposed to his own desperate attempts to shut out the noise of London - ironically even that of the local birds (‘demon fowl‘). Thomas Hood, Maria Edgeworth and George Meredith all refer to Bewick, while Charlotte Brontë wrote a poem about him - and the exciting book mentioned at the beginning of Jane Eyre is Bewick’s History of British Birds. Bewick spent many late summer holidays at Tynemouth and began his famous Memoir there in November 1822. It is a vivid record of his childhood and his life as a craftsman. It also includes a good deal of sensible meditation on politics, education and religion, no doubt reflecting the talk at his favourite haunts in Newcastle, like the Fox and Lamb and Swarley’s Club in Groat Market - ‘Newcastle’s House of Lords’. Bewick himself remarked: ‘The majority of men do not reason, they ruminate.’ He also frequented the Blue Bell and the Newsroom in the Head of Side, where his cronies included John Mitchell, editor of the Tyne Mercury, Ralph Crawford, shoemaker, Joseph Bulmer, builder and Count Raymond, French teacher and fencing master. Bewick also record a one-sided fight with his friend the utopian writer Thomas Spence (q.v.). Bewick had been to London as a young man but, despite favourable prospects, took an intense dislike to the place and returned after nine months. He despised ‘the porrige of outside show’ and writes in a letter of 1776: ‘Tho I might allway continue to meet with the greatest encouragement imajinable - yet wou’d I rather live in both poverty and insecurity in Ncastle. The Lord Mayor show - and all the numerous shows to be seen in London may give a momentary satisfaction - cannot afford me half the pleasure - which I allways felt in my excurtions... thro the pleasant woods to Eltringham...’ Bewick lived at various times in Pudding Chare, the Forth and, after 1812, in Gateshead where his residence is commemorated on what is now the main post office in West Street. His last engraving shows a funeral procession winding slowly down from Cherryburn to the bridge across the Tyne. Bewick is buried in the churchyard at Ovingham. Bewick’s Swan was named in his honour shortly after his death.
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