George Cruikshank (1792-1878), The Ragged School In West Street (late Chick Lane) Smithfield, [1846]. Pencil, ink, and watercolor. Original design for an etching published in Our Own Times, 1846. Graphic Arts Collection GA2013- in process

When in London, you can visit the Ragged School Museum, housed in three canalside buildings that once formed one of the largest ragged or free schools. According to the museum’s history site, “when Thomas Barnardo came to London from his home city of Dublin in 1866 … he was confronted by a city where disease was rife, poverty and overcrowding endemic and educational opportunities for the poor were non-existent. He watched helplessly as a cholera epidemic swept through the East End…. He gave up his medical training to pursue his local missionary works and in 1867 opened his first “ragged school” where children could gain a free basic education.”

Ragged or free schools for London’s poor children existed long before Barnardo’s, usually set up in one room of a house. George Cruikshank (1792-1878) designed a view of such a classroom to illustrate his book Our Own Times, (Cohn 193). Published monthly from April to July 1846, each part had one original etching along with a total of 41 other illustrations.
Cruikshank’s scene divides the school into two sections, one for girls on the right and one for boys on the left. Note the self-portrait at the bottom right corner, signed “self, GC.”

Goethe remarked, “One cannot have a sense of humour unless one be without conscience or responsibility.” By the end of the year, Cruikshank’s moral conscience had overtaken his interest in caricature and frivolous entertainment. He gave up drinking and smoking, joined the temperance movement, and in 1847 began the 8 plates for The Bottle.

London engraver Charles Mosley published four satirical prints, 1737 to 1740, on the ‘European race’ between nations. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired two of the rare set in honor of it former curator, Dale Roylance.

Charles Mosley (ca.1720-ca.1756), The European Race Heat IId Anno Dom. MDCCXXXVIII, November 26, 1738. Graphic Arts Collection. Purchased in honor of Dale Roylance with the support of the Friends of the Princeton University Library.

Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745) figures in each scene, as he struggles to prevent war, against the wishes of the King and the House of Commons. In 1739 Walpole gave in and sent British forces into what became known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear.

Many animals and riders are competing, including the Turkish elephant, the Dutch boar, the French Fox, the Austrian eagle, and the Russian bear, among others. The skies are full of iconography, with a partial eclipse in 1738 along with cobwebs forming around the doves. By 1740, the devil has given up flying a kite and holds a small banner reading “un autre conven pour l’angleterre” [another convention for England].

Charles Mosley (ca.1720-ca.1756), European Race for a Distance Anno dom. MDCCXXXX, Inscrib’d to the Political Club, by their humb. servt. An Englishman, February 26, 1740. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection. Purchased in honor of Dale Roylance with the support of the Friend of the Princeton University Library.

The Graphic Arts Collection also holds a pirated edition of Mosley’s 1738 engraving, laterally reversed, revealing that an unidentified artist copied Mosley’s positive image onto a copper plate, resulting in a flipped copy.