Early Modern Rambler

What is Topical Retail Advertising ?
The advertising sections of later Stuart newspapers were rich sources of news. On 14th September 1710 Joseph Addison wrote in The Tatler that:

‘It is my Custom, in a Dearth of News, to entertain my selfe with those Collections of Advertisements that appear at the End of all our publick Prints. These I consider as Accounts of News from the little World, in the same Manner that the foregoing Parts of the Paper are from the great. If in one we hear that a Sovereign Prince is fled from his Capital City, in the other we hear of a Tradesman who hath shut up his Shop, and run away. If in one we find the Victory of a General, in the other we see the Desertion of a private Soldier.’ [1]

In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the term advertisement applied as equally to notices of information as it did to those retailing goods. (The word advertising began to be used to describe retail publicity in the early modern period. It signified the giving of information from at least as early as the fifteenth century. [2] )

The information notices that Addison enjoyed touched many different areas of early modern life. The news from the little world consisted of appeals for lost dogs, stolen property, missing persons (children, runaway slaves, murder victims and wandering elderly) and announced occasions like sporting events and community celebrations.

What Addison did not mention, possibly because it was so commonplace that he did not notice it, was that the advertising sections also carried news from the great world in their retail notices. The ‘Victory of a General’ was seldom confined to the foregoing parts of the paper because London’s retailers were jostling to make a profit from it.

One such general was the Imperial commander Charles V of Lorraine. On 2nd September 1686 he raised the siege of Buda. This decisive victory against the Turks was hailed across Christian Europe, and English interest in the Austro-Turkish war can be seen in The London Gazette’s extensive coverage of it. (Earlier in 1683 when the Turks besieged Vienna there had been an ‘abnormal demand’ for the newspaper.) [3]

The fame of Charles V’s victory at Buda also made its way into the advertising section on the back page of The London Gazette. Map and printseller John Oliver placed three advertisements for products related to the siege. On 9th August he advertised a map described as ‘an Exact Delineation of the Famous Siege of Buda’, on 13th September he promoted a mezzotint portrait of Charles V and on 1st November he placed a notice for ‘A curious Delineation of the Storming of Buda.’ On the 4th and 7th October His Majesty’s printer Henry Hills advertised ‘An exact Description of the City of Buda’ and on 28th October the stationer Richard Palmer inserted a notice for a map of Hungary.[4] On 21st October the medal maker George Bower advertised ‘A Medal of the Duke of Lorrain, with a Reverse representing the Figure of the Christian Religion triumphing over the Crescent’. Only thirteen newspaper advertisements for medals were placed in the later Stuart period which suggests that the presence of this notice is evidence for the strength of English response to the siege. [5]

The retailers’ response to the siege of Buda was not unusual. Topical advertisements for portrait prints, maps and plans, playing cards and other goods were widespread in newspapers and The Term Catalogues across the later Stuart period. No survey has yet been carried out to assess and analyse the extent of topicality in retail advertising but observation in the course of this research suggests that it was widespread and with a few exceptions restricted to printed goods. [6]

Many products were advertised at times when the subjects they depicted and discussed were topical. The progress of wars can be traced in the advertisements for maps depicting the battlefields, poems celebrating the generals and books about the participating powers. Planned days of celebration were marked by notices that often appeared within a week and sometimes even on the day of the event.

Other advertisements promoted products that related to ideas that were particularly current. The preoccupation with the Protestant succession is reflected in the notices for portraits of the designated heir Princess Sophia, her son and her grandson that were placed in The Post Man on 5th and 10th October 1704. In June 1680 Thomas Hobbes’ publisher advertised his portrait in The Term Catalogues at a time when the writer’s ideas had renewed relevance because of the Exclusion Crisis. [7] The ebb and flow of early modern events and ideas can be traced in the texts and visual goods that were advertised in newspapers and The Term Catalogues.

The later Stuart period is particularly important for the study of topical retail advertising in newspapers. The first retail advertisements appeared in English newspapers in the 1620s but advertising was not used regularly in newsbooks until the 1650s when on average between three and six retail and information notices were placed per issue. [8]

The use of advertising accelerated after the Restoration in 1660, and by 1700 newspapers usually carried more than a page of notices. This means that this period saw the first widespread use of topical retail advertising in newspapers. The extent of topical retail advertising in English newspapers has never been researched. This thesis’ survey and analysis of topical portrait print advertising is the first piece in a rich jigsaw and it shows how the study of topical retail advertising can be used to better understand the role of consumer goods in the circulation of news and opinion.

This is an extract from chapter one of “Topical Portrait Print Advertising in London Newspapers and The Term Catalogues,” Durham University (UK) 2005, C.H.L.George

Footnotes
1 The Tatler, ed. Donald F. Bond (Oxford, 1987), Vol. 3. p.166. Cited in Michael Harris, ‘Timely Notices: The Uses of Advertising and its Relationship to News during the Late Seventeenth Century,’ in News, Newspapers and Society in Early Modern Britain, ed. Joad Raymond (London, 1999), pp. 141-156 (pp. 153-154).
2 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1991), pp.190-191.
3 P.M.Handover, A History of The London Gazette 1665-1965 (London, 1965), p.22.
4 Sarah Tyacke, London map-sellers, 1660-1720: a collection of advertisements for maps placed in the London Gazette, 1668-1719: with biographical notes on the map-sellers (Tring, 1978), pp. 34-35.
5 C.H.L.George, ‘Marketing Medals in Early Modern Britain: Advertisements for Medals of Charles V of Lorraine and Charles III “King of Spain,”’ The Medal, 42 (2003), pp. 23-26.
6 Chapter Six discusses topical advertisements for other products.
7 The Term Catalogues, Vol. 1, p.406.
8 R.B.Walker, ‘Advertising in London newspapers, 1650-1750,’ Business History, 15 (1973), pp.112-130 (p.115)

It’s a couple of years now since I wrote the thesis. Some of my ideas have changed with the advantage of hindsight and time. I’m not likely to pursue this area of research again, but if you’re interested and you’d like to talk about it, please don’t hesitate to contact me.