W J Linton, A Victorian Geezer, with beard.
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
There are a great number of Victorian men with beards who still dominate the thinking of the English speaking world. One such was John Ruskin, described as the greatest Victorian other than Victoria, who lived for a part of his life in Brantwood, a house on Coniston Water, in The Lake District of north-west England. Ruskin was prominent in his time, and remains so, progenitor of that socialist 'Arts and Crafts' movement that still has resonances today, an early environmentalist and conserver, founder of the Labour Movement etc etc. He bought this substantial house from one William James Linton, described as a Wood Engraver and Revolutionary. This appears to be a strange juxtaposition of 'professions', and it seems odd that such a house belonged to an apparently humble artisan, radical or not. So who, exactly, was this guy?
WOOD ENGRAVING
Linton was born in London, England in 1812 and became an apprentice to GW Bonner, an established engraver, who taught him wood engraving and was known for his experiments with colour printing. He went on to work with other engravers, particularly John Thompson, who had started his own career with Thomas Bewick, whose name we attach now to (very valuable) illustrations of birds, but who, in his time, claimed fame by reviving the art of Wood Engraving. The technique allows greater subtlety than metal plates giving the artist more empathy with the material, enabling greater creativity. Bewick invented a particular technique, white-lining. Linton took up this technique, and the art and craft of wood engraving, with considerable zeal and enthusiasm, and used it to good effect in carving out a career and reputation for himself.
Linton formed a partnership with one Orrin Smith, and together they secured a contract with the new Illustrated London News1, which quickly became a very successful magazine. Smith, unfortunately, died shortly after the start of the enterprise and Linton was left to carry on alone. Linton was very prolific, working with Dante Gabriel Rosetti, others of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and Charles Dickens as well as many other artists, authors and publishers. The thinking at the time, perhaps initiated by William Blake2, was that the illuminated book was a means to political and spiritual reform, a means (because of the manual block printing required) of keeping the artistic production in the hands of the artist. It was a very marxist approach, working against the capitalist, against mass production, against what we would now call globalisation. With the advent of the internet, parallels might be drawn as, again, it is possible for the artist, the author, to retain control of their publications. Whether Stephen King sees himself as a Marxist, however, may be open to doubt. Linton, as the illustrator, as the proponent of the medieval technique of wood engraving, was very much part of that movement. He must, through Rosetti, have known Ruskin reasonably well, but what influence he had in the conception of the Arts and Crafts movement, is not clear. He does not appear to have been at the centre of the 'sex, drugs and free-thinking' set that were developing idealistic ideas for socialist utopias, but obviously knew and worked with many of this influential circle.
Apart from the wood engraving for which he is best known, he also invented an electrotyping process called 'kerography'. Among his team of apprentices and trainees were many who later achieved success in their own right, in particular Walter Crane, though few appear to have shared his love of wood engraving.
His work apparently brought him some financial success, for in 1850, age 38, he was able to purchase Brantwood, and spent much of the next two decades as a creative artist, still working with wood engraving. In 1867 he sold up, and moved to America, living in Hamden, near New Haven, teaching part-time in New York. He was something of a celebrity there, described as 'the centre and soul of whatever was progressive in wood engraving' and wrote several text-books on technique and the history and development of the art.
POETRY AND PROSE
Linton was, however, not only a wood engraver. He wrote books himself, and also poetry. Described as a 'working class poet' or 'chartist poet' then, the poems that he is best remembered for now belong in the Romantic school of the time and concern the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood, which were well respected even in comparison to Wordsworth, Tennyson etc. He was also known for his epigrams, both in translation from ancient Greek, and on his own account. Such apparently slight verses require no small skill. He would be counted among the lesser poets of Nineteenth century Britain, but that in itself is no mean achievement for a wood engraver.
His books included volumes on Natural History (see below), Politics and the craft and history of wood block engraving.
PTERIDOLOGY
His stay in the Lake District encouraged him to study and draw the area and, in particular, Ferns. The National Trust, current owners of Brantwood, are in the process of reviving and re-planting the 'Linton Fern Garden' there. He wrote and illustrated A Natural History of Ferns and The Ferns of the English Lake Country both of which remain important texts. With his wife writing the words, he also illustrated The Lake Country which, no doubt, played its part in the enticement of tourists to the area.
WIVES
Linton was married twice. Details of the first marriage are difficult to find, but, by the time of his second marriage he had seven children. His second wife was the 'shameless scribbler' Eliza(beth) Lynn Linton whose family home was in Keswick, and was presumably thus easily lured back to Cumberland. Eliza Lynn Linton was a very strong and interesting character. She was the first woman journalist in London, an achievement that must have taken more than a little guts and determination, and had written some historical novels. She, then living with her father, sold their house at Gads Hill, Rochester to Charles Dickens prior to her marriage to Linton in 1858. The marriage was, however, short-lived and she returned to the literary circles of London within five years. Possibly, the charm of a rural idyll caring for a large family soon palled. After the marriage, her books turned to the more racy "sensation fiction" and she took a strong anti-feminist, anti-lesbian, anti-womens education stance, though seemingly keeping up her association with the free-thinking set. She was a friend of George Elliot3 but apparently despised by Charlotte Bronte. Indeed, she seemed to attract many strong reactions, perhaps because she was an emancipated strong-minded woman who relished attacking feminism and the suffragettes.
Linton, in the meantime, sold Brantwood to Ruskin and emigrated. In America, he seems to have returned to the more libertarian ways he had known in London, and also seems to have been known to Victoria Woodhull Claflin, a controversial suffragette who, among very many other things, was the first woman to run for the US Presidency.
POLITICS
Linton was prominent in the Chartist and Republican movements and was very involved in the development of the utopian ideas based on the nobility of the worker that Morris and Ruskin later espoused. The English Republic, God and the People a book published in 1851, seems to include his main political ideas. He was involved in the fights against Stamp Tax, and for parliamentary reform, and he edited the Chartist magazine The Cause of The People. He was deeply immersed in the radical political culture of the times, a proto-marxist. In America he edited magazines and a newspaper.
Linton may be, from our perspective, an unnoticed bit-player in the Victorian "Golden Age" of English arts, crafts and literature. Nonetheless his talents require attention. A master wood engraver on both sides of the Atlantic, Linton was also at least a junior master of several other trades, with considerable success as a Poet, Writer, Editor and Pteridologist as well as his immersion in Politics and a short marriage to a talented woman. It is difficult to imagine such a career, especially for a self educated man, in this 21st Century when everyone has a specialisation, and people are defined by their jobs/qualifications/career.
If you need to see this remarkable man with his equally remarkable beard, a late picture of Linton is included here and if you want to know more about wood engraving, there is no better place to start than David Bull's World of Woodblock Printmaking. There is a collection of Linton's letters etc. at Princeton University.
