NATURE 



309 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, iS3s 



SIR HENRY COLE 

 Fifty Years of Public Work of Sir Henry Cole. Two vols. 

 (London: George Bell and Sons, 1884.) 



THIS book, though chatty and discursive enough in 

 parts, will disappoint those who want to learn 

 something of the personality and life of a doughty 

 champion of some dozen reforms. The first part, 

 from the racy pen of Sir Henry Cole himself, teems 

 with lively comments and thrusts, more sua. The 

 vigour of a man who believed in his mission, and re- 

 joiced in the work of his own hands, appears on every 

 page. No mark is required to indicate the transition 

 from the dashing, animated narrative of the chief actor to 

 the careful and cautious chapters written by his children. 

 We do not see how either could give us what we chiefly 

 want without offending against certain rules of delicacy 

 which we are glad to know are not yet quite obsolete. 

 The life of Sir Henry Cole, the inner history of his 

 struggles, his successes and failures, the motive power, 

 and an impartial view of the man in relation to his work 

 — this has yet to be written. What he and his children 

 between them have given us is a valuable collection of 

 facts and documents bearing upon the most important 

 progressive movements of our century. 



To not a few the second volume will be more interesting 

 than the first. The plan of the work is to give in the first 

 volume a series of chapters which take in Sir H. Cole's 

 principal work, and the corroborative and supplementary 

 documents, with many curious illustrations, make up the 

 second volume. The whole concludes with a most thorough- 

 going verbal index, which would have rejoiced Sir Henry 

 Cole's heart, for to him nothing was complete without an 

 index. 



Henry Cole had to face no ordinary difficulties in 

 carrying out his work, but then he was just the man for 

 difficulties. He would have been nowhere in piping 

 times of peace. His appetite for a task grew as the 

 opposition and hindrances grew. Probably no one ever 

 knew him to be faint-hearted or broken in resources. At 

 last it came to be felt that he would in any case carry his 

 point, and timid natures gave way before the impetuosity 

 of a knight whose sword had no scabbard, and who left 

 himself no retreat. You could only beat him by cutting 

 him to pieces — there was no other way. At the Paris 

 Exhibition of 1855 he was known to the officials as ce 

 terrible Cole — a man who, regardless of the methods of 

 red tape, took the shortest way to his point, and did not 

 know when he was beaten by all the rules of officialism. 



Associated with this indomitable pluck was another 

 quality which the English people love well. He had a 

 never-failing flow of good spirits which burst forth in 

 rollicking good humour, confusing and sometimes irritat- 

 ing to his opponents. We suspect that not a few of the 

 enemies he made had suffered in their self-esteem from 

 the sharpness of his common sense driven home by his 

 reckless love of fun — at least of what was fun in him. 

 Once, when giving an address, in a provincial town, on 

 public libraries, as he was advocating the setting up of 

 Vot . xxxi. — No. 7n7 



reading-rooms where smoking would be allowed, a Ioca' 

 magnate on the platform testily interrupted him with a 

 formal protest and the remark that there was a public- 

 house across the road. Sir Henry Cole, pausing in his 

 discourse, surveyed his critic for a moment with a curious 

 air, and then, turning to the audience, said in a loud 

 "aside" and with the most perfect good humour: — 

 " This gentleman seems to be a kind of pope down here." 

 The cause of his antagonist collapsed amidst inextin- 

 guishable laughter. On another occasion the Education 

 Code was under consideration, and one, not remarkable 

 for hereditary wisdom, suggested that the poor children 

 should be taught " legal economy," meaning thereby, as 

 was explained, a knowledge of the laws of the land, — 

 " And the Ten Commandments," interpolated Sir Henry 

 Cole in a stentorian voice. People do not readily forgive 

 such setting forth of their folly, but it was a temptation 

 which an impulsive enthusiast could not resist. 



In the short space allotted to this notice it would be 

 unwise to indulge in extracts. If we take one, it is 

 because it sets forth in Sir Henry Cole's own words the 

 works of a public nature with which he was connected. 



" The principal subjects which I now deal with are the 

 reform of the system of preserving the inestimable public 

 records of this country, dating from the time of the Nor- 

 man Conquest, and unrivalled in Europe ; my work in 

 expediting the successful introduction of Rowland Hill's 

 penny postage ; the administration of railways ; the 

 application of fine art to children's books and then to 

 manufactures, which led to the transfer of my duties to 

 the Board of Trade ; the Great Exhibition of 1851, and 

 its successors ; the reform of the Patent Laws ; the 

 establishment of schools of art and science classes 

 throughout the United Kingdom ; the South Kensington 

 Museum ; drill in public elementary schools as the basis 

 of a national army ; national training schools for music 

 and for cookery ; the Society of Arts, and public health." 



To begin with the public records. Entering this office 

 as a mere youth, his spirit was stirred within him when 

 he saw the utter carelessness as regards documents 

 " dating from the time of the Norman Conquest and 

 unrivalled in Europe." For daring to call attention to 

 the jeopardy in which these precious records were placed 

 he was dismissed, and no doubt it was thought the insig- 

 nificant youth was extinguished ; but in the end young 

 Cole dragged the affair before Parliament, and was 

 triumphantly reinstated with something like full powers 

 to cany out the much-needed reform. Our Public 

 Records Office is now a credit to the administration of 

 the country, but fifty years ago (so it was stated in 

 Parliament) public records were boiled down for glue, 

 and the clearer and better sort converted into jellies by 

 the confectioners (Mr. Charles Buller's speech on Public 

 Records, vol. ii. p. 86). 



While at the Records Office, Henry Cole threw himself 

 into the uniform penny postage movement. The par- 

 ticular task he undertook was to rouse popular enthusiasm 

 for the reform, and we have Sir Rowland Hill's testimony 

 that " he was the author of almost innumerable devices 

 by which in his indefatigable ingenuity he contrived to 

 draw public attention to the proposed measure." There 

 ;s an amusing cut in the book (vol. ii. p. 102) representing 

 one of these devices. Mr. Cole obtained a prize of 100/. 

 from the Treasury for an essay on the best method of 



