Howard Dudley (1820–1864) was an English author and wood-engraver.

Life

Born in 1820, Dudley was the only son of Quaker parents George and Sarah Dudley. He spent his early years in

Fleet Street Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was na ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

but on the death of his father in 1827 the family moved to

Easebourne Easebourne () is a village, Anglican parish and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is half a mile (0.8 km) north of Midhurst, across the River Rother on the A272 and A286 roads. The parish includes the ham ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

, near to Midhurst. Dudley married Jane Ellen Young on 1 December 1849 in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, and returned to London three years later. Howard Dudley died childless of consumption on 4 July 1864.

Works

Dudley wrote the first illustrated history of

Horsham Horsham is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

, ''The History and Antiquities of Horsham and its Vicinities'' (1836). He also produced the

lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

s and

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

s that were used as the illustrations, and then went on to print the book himself. He was only 15 at the time. This was Dudley’s second book; the first being a wider ranging history of

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

entitled ''Juvenile Researches'' of which he produced two editions in 1835 and 1836. The two texts are rare today. Facsimile copies have been reproduced on two occasions and now the full text and images of the Horsham book are available digitally. The first facsimile was published by Cecil Cramp in 1973, and its successor in 2002 was published by Dick Richardson. The Horsham book is dedicated to the Right Hon George O’Brien Wyndam, Earl of Egremont and Baron Cockermouth. As a wood-engraver Dudley was self-taught, but went on to have a career in the art, producing work for various publishers and periodicals until shortly before his death.

Reputation

Dick Richardson’s book, upon which the above text draws, quotes Dudley’s obituary in the '' Gentlemen’s Magazine'': "Dudley was a mild and amiable man, affectionate in his domestic relations, and his gentlemanly manners, bright ideas and pungent remarks, and a very great choice of words, made him a delightful companion. He died with an earnest profession of his belief in Jesus Christ."

References

* Howard Dudley. ''The History and Antiquities of Horsham''. Country Books; Facsimile Ed edition (21 October 2002). . * Jeremy Knight. ''Horsham's History: 1790–1880'' v. 2 (Paperback)

External links

* *
The History and Antiquities of Horsham
transcribed with illustrations and reproduced in full on Hidden Horsham
The History and Antiquities of Horsham
pdf reproduction of original book {{DEFAULTSORT:Dudley, Howard 1820 births 1864 deaths Historians of the British Isles 19th-century British historians British wood engravers People from Easebourne