£12.00
This beautifully restored 16x12 inch (406x305 mm) photographic print shows a charming Christmas market at Lowther Arcade, London. Taken from the 24 December 1870 edition of the Illustrated London News.
In 1842, Herbert Ingram, a young printer and newsagent from Nottingham, arrived in London. As a newsagent he noticed that when on the rare occasions that newspapers included woodcuts, their sales increased. He therefore came to the conclusion that it would be possible to make a good profit from a magazine that included a large number of illustrations.
The first edition of the Illustrated London News appeared on 14th May 1842. Costing sixpence, the magazine had sixteen pages and thirty-two woodcut illustrations.
The London Illustrated News was an immediate success and the first edition sold 26,000 copies. Within a few months it was selling over 65,000 copies a week. Encouraged by the success of the Illustrated London News, Ingram decided in 1848 to start a daily newspaper, the London Telegraph.