Henry Lucy

Sir (William) Henry Lucy JP, (5 December 1842 [Most early references give 5 December 1845 as the birthdate, as did Lucy himself. DNB cites a baptism in April 1843 and gives a putative birthdate of March 1843. English civil registration records the birth as being registered in the first quarter of 1843, as William Henry Lucy [District:West Derby Vol:XX Page:863] . 5 December 1842 seems the most likely date of birth.] – 20 February 1924) was an English journalist and humorist, and a parliamentary sketch-writer acknowledged as the first great lobby correspondent.

Henry Lucy was born in Crosby, near Liverpool in 1842, the son of Robert Lucy, a rose-engine turner in the watch trade, and his wife, Margaret Ellen Kemp. He was baptised on 23 April 1843 at St. Michael's Church, Crosby.

While he was still an infant the family removed to Everton, Liverpool, where he attended the private Crescent School until August 1856; thereafter until 1864 he was junior clerk to Robert Smith, hide merchant, of Redcross Street, Liverpool.

Worked as a clerk, and had poetry published in the "Liverpool Mercury"; taught himself shorthand. Worked for the "Shrewsbury Chronicle" (1864), the local "Observer", and the "Shropshire News". Lived in Paris during 1869, and learned French.

Lucy married on 29 October 1873 Emily Anne (1847–1937), daughter of his old schoolmaster at Liverpool, John White. There were no children of the marriage.

British journalist; wrote for "Pall Mall Gazette" from 1870, for "Daily News" from 1873 (and of which he was the editor): and for "Punch" from 1881. Used the nom-de-plume "Toby, M.P." from 1881 to 1916. Wrote the weekly column "The Essence of Parliament" in "Punch" magazine for 35 years. When not writing under one of his pseudonyms, he was usually styled "Henry W. Lucy".

In 1880, he began writing for "The Observer" the "Cross bench" column, which continued for twenty-nine years.

His remarkable flair for politics and parliamentary affairs soon brought him to the front rank of his profession.Lucy's lasting memorial is in the volumes he compiled from his "Punch" parliamentary sketches: "A Diary of Two Parliaments" (2 vols., 1885–6);" A Diary of the Salisbury Parliament, 1886–1892" (1892); "A Diary of the Home Rule Parliament, 1892–1895" (1896); "A Diary of the Unionist Parliament, 1895–1900" (1901); and "The Balfourian Parliament, 1900–1905" (1906). These amount to a history of the Commons in its heyday, and have been extensively mined by historians.

Knighted in 1909, he was the first lobby correspondent to be seen as the social equal of the politicians in the Commons whom he reported.

His London home was at 42 Ashley Gardens, and he was a member of the National Liberal Club.

He died of bronchitis at "Whitethorn", his country house at Hillside Street, Hythe, Kent in 1924, aged 81.

Sir Henry Lucy left a huge sum of money, over £250,000 [probate, 14 April 1925, £263,672 1s. 5d., "CGPLA Eng. & Wales"] , and was probably the wealthiest Victorian journalist who was not also a newspaper proprietor.

In 1935, his widow Lady Lucy donated £1,000 to found the "Sir Henry Lucy Scholarship" at Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby.

There are several portraits of Sir Henry Lucy at the National Portrait Gallery, including one by John Singer Sargent.

Autobiographies

"Sixty Years in the Wilderness"
*Volume I "Some passages by the way" (1909)^N [http://www.archive.org/details/sixtyyearsinwild00lucyuoft Online version] at The Internet Archive
*Volume II "More passages by the way" (1912)^N [http://www.archive.org/details/sixtyyearsinwil00lucyuoft Online version] at The Internet Archive
*Volume III "Nearing Jordan" (1916) [http://www.archive.org/details/nearingjordanbei00lucyiala Online version] at The Internet Archive

Note: ^N the catalogue has indexed these volumes in the wrong order.

"The Diary of a Journalist"
*Volume I (1920) [http://www.archive.org/details/diaryofjournalis01lucyiala Online version] at The Internet Archive
*Volume II "Later Entries" (1922) [http://www.archive.org/details/diaryofjournalis02lucyiala Online version] at The Internet Archive
*Volume III "Fresh Extracts" (1923)

Quotes

by Henry Lucy

"The physical energy with which this election speech was delivered was certainly very remarkable for a man in his seventy-fourth year. There is, however, unmistakeable evidence of pumping up in the Premier's (Beaconsfield's) latest oratorical feats. The vigour is spasmodic, the strength artificial, and the listener has a feeling that at any moment a spring may break, a screw go loose, and the whole machinery come to a sudden stop.

[
right|thumb|Caricature_of_Henry_Lucy,_by_Kate Carew] Gladstone's "tours de force" are perfectly natural. When after one of his great speeches he resumes his seat, he is, and often proves himself to be, ready to start again. With the Premier, the excitement of the moment over and the appointed task achieved, he falls into a state of prostration painful to witness. His eyes seem to lose all expression, his cheeks fall in, and his face takes on a ghastly hue. Physically he is at least ten years older than Gladstone." "A Diary of Two Parliaments" ["A Diary of Two Parliaments" London, Cassell, 1885 page 151]

"The House of Commons is unique in many ways. I believe the main foundation of the position it holds among the parliaments of the world is the condition of volunteered unremunerated service.

In spite of the sneers from disappointed or flippant persons, a seat in the House of Commons remains one of the highest prizes of citizen life. There is no reason why any constituency desiring to do so may not return a member on the terms of paying him a salary. It is done in several cases, in two at least with the happiest results.

It would be a different thing to throw the whole place open with standing advertisement for eligible Members at a salary. The horde of impecunious babblers and busybodies attracted by such a bait would trample down the class of man who compose the present House of Commons and who are, in various ways, in touch with all the multiform interests of the nation." "Strand Magazine", 1883 [ [http://endofdirecttaxation.blogspot.com/2007/01/daily-mail-letters-page-january-16th.html] "YourMoneyDownTheDrain" blog quotation from the "Daily Mail", 16 January, 2007]

"I would rather have been editor of "Punch", than Emperor of India..." [ quoted in "Writers, Readers and Reputations" by Philip Waller, page 78]

"Yesterday Herbert Spencer died at Brighton. His natural temperament was such that many things that other men got along with placidly gave him acute pain. To put the incontestable fact another way, he was perhaps the most irascible man who has ever been faced by the inconvenience of other people presuming to inhabit the same globe" [ quoted in "On the Up and Up" by Bruce Barton (reprinted Kessinger, 2004) page 154]

about Henry Lucy

President Woodrow Wilson credited Lucy with propelling him into public life [ [http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2003/sample/kraigchap.pdf Woodrow Wilson and the Lost World of the Oratorical Statesman] by Robert Alexander Kraig, 2004] , and described reading Lucy's articles in The Gentleman's Magazine as "the deciding impulse of [my] life; vivid descriptions of Parliament, which took an enthralling hold on [my] young imagination" "New York Times", 1912 [ [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F05E3D61E3CE633A2575BC2A9619C946396D6CF Governor Woodrow Wilson as his biographer knows him] - "New York Times" article, 28 July, 1912
See also the dedication and letter in "Men and Manner in Parliament" (1919), and Chapter 1 "The Orator", which first appeared pseudonymously in "The Gentleman's Magazine" in 1874]

"Never in the House, but always of it, Lucy seemed to occupy for a long time a position of his own, as a species of familiar spirit or licensed jester, without which no Parliament was complete."Times Obit.", 1924 [ "Times Obituary" (22nd February 1924), page 17]

The journalist and writer Frank Harris said of him that, "He met everyone, and knew no-one." [ "My Life and Loves" by Frank Harris, Volume 2, Chapter XXII]

"Shackleton's naming an antarctic mountain after Sir Henry Lucy amuses me. I knew Lucy very well - a little toadie, who afterwards toadied himself into a title..." Ambrose Bierce, "letter", 1910 " [ "A much misunderstood man - selected letters of Ambrose Bierce" edited by S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz]

Pseudonyms

Toby, M.P.

The Member for the Chiltern Hundreds

The Member for "Barks"

Baron de Book-Worms

Other works

Books

"Gideon Fleyce" [novel] (1883)

"East by West: a journey in the Recess" (1885)

"A Diary Of Two Parliaments: The Disraeli Parliament, 1874-1880" (1885) [http://www.archive.org/details/diaryoftwoparlia00lucyiala Online version] at The Internet Archive

"A Diary Of Two Parliaments: The Gladstone Parliament, 1880-1885" (1886) [http://www.archive.org/details/diaryoftwoparlia02lucyiala Online version] at The Internet Archive

"A Popular Handbook of Parliamentary Procedure" (1886) [http://www.archive.org/details/popularhandbooko00lucyiala Online version] at The Internet Archive

"Faces and Places" (1892) [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25624/25624-h/25624-h.htm Online version] at Project Gutenberg

"A Diary of the Salisbury Parliament, 1886-1892" (1892) [http://www.archive.org/details/diaryofsalisbury00lucyrich Online version] at The Internet Archive

"The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone: A Study from Life" (1895) [http://www.archive.org/details/righthonorablewi00lucy Online version] at The Internet Archive

"A Diary of the Home Rule Parliament, 1892-1895" (1896) [http://www.archive.org/details/diaryofthehomeru008483mbp Online version] at The Internet Archive

"The Log of the Tantallon Castle" (1896) [ [http://www.avidcruiser.com/albert/?page_id=68 Weblog description of the book] ]

"The Miller's Niece, and some distant connections" [short stories] (1896)

"The Law and Practice of General Elections: A Popular Handbook" (1900)

"A Diary of the Unionist Parliament, 1895-1900" (1901) [http://www.archive.org/details/diaryofunionistp00lucyuoft Online version] at The Internet Archive

"Peeps at Parliament, taken from behind the Speaker's Chair" (1904) [http://www.archive.org/details/peepsatparliamen00lucyrich Online version] at The Internet Archive

"Later peeps at Parliament, taken from behind the Speaker's Chair" (1905) [http://www.archive.org/details/laterpeepsatparl00lucyuoft Online version] at The Internet Archive

"The Balfourian Parliament, 1900-1905" (1906) [http://www.archive.org/details/balfourianparlia00lucyiala Online version] at The Internet Archive

"Memories of Eight Parliaments" (1908) [http://www.archive.org/details/memoriesofeightp00lucyrich Online version] at The Internet Archive

"Men and Manner in Parliament" (1919) [http://www.archive.org/details/menandmannerinpa00lucyiala Online version] at The Internet Archive

"Lords and Commoners" (1921) [http://www.archive.org/details/lordscommonersil00lucyuoft Online version] at The Internet Archive

Articles

"Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden" (1882) [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fharp%2Fharp0064%2F&tif=00757.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABK4014-0064-112 Online version] at Cornell University Library

"Glimpses Of Great Britons" (1882) [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fharp%2Fharp0065%2F&tif=00177.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABK4014-0065-21 Online version] at Cornell University Library

"Hatfield House and the Marquess of Salisbury" (1885) [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fharp%2Fharp0070%2F&tif=00349.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABK4014-0070-50 Online version] at Cornell University Library

"Men of the Salisbury Parliament" (1891) [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0152%2F&tif=00457.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABQ7578-0152-46 Online version] at Cornell University Library

"Electioneering methods in England" (1892) [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0155%2F&tif=00344.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABQ7578-0155-40 Online version] at Cornell University Library

"The Power of the British Press" (1896) [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0163%2F&tif=00174.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABQ7578-0163-21&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50 Online version] at Cornell University Library

"The Queen's Parliaments, Part I" (1897) [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0164%2F&tif=00747.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABQ7578-0164-74 Online version] at Cornell University Library

"The Queen's Parliaments, Part II" (1897) [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0165%2F&tif=00105.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DABQ7578-0165-13 Online version] at Cornell University Library

and many more in "Punch", "Strand Magazine", "Harper's Magazine", "Cornhill Magazine", "The New York Times" and others.

Triva

Mount Henry Lucy (3020m) in Antarctica was named after him by Shackleton in 1909 [ [http://mapplanet.com/?do=loc&country=_A&adm1=09&loc=20005419 MapPlanet] ] , as thanks for Lucy's assistance in publicising his Nimrod Expedition and help in raising funds.

References

Links

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25624/25624-h/25624-h.htm "Faces and Places"] - an 1892 travelogue by Henry Lucy
[http://librivox.org/faces-and-places-by-henry-w-lucy/ "Faces and Places"] - audiobook from LibriVox, read by Ruth Golding

[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C07E6D81439E433A25756C2A9669D946297D6CF Mark Twain makes some parting remarks] - "New York Times" article, 25 October, 1903
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9901E2D91E3BE631A2575AC2A9639C946597D6CF Sensation in the Lords witnessed by Toby, M.P.] - "New York Times" article, 29 May, 1904
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E03EEDC1F3AE733A25754C1A9619C946597D6CF Toby, M.P. tells how late dinners worry the Government] - "New York Times" article, 17 July, 1904
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A0DE7DB1631E233A25755C1A9639C946997D6CF The Parliamentary Game] - Review of Memories of Eight Parliaments, "New York Times" article, 16 May, 1908
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9905E0DA153EE733A25757C0A9629C946897D6CF To build 8 Dreadnoughts] - "New York Times" article, 4 April, 1909
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9506E6D71E31E733A25756C2A9609C946897D6CF 'Toby, M.P.', Pinero and Tree knighted] - "New York Times" article, 25 June, 1909
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9907EFD91539E733A25755C2A9609C946897D6CF Sixty Years in the Wilderness] - Review of Sixty years in the Wilderness, Vol. 1, "New York Times" article, 26 June, 1909
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9400E6DF153BE733A25754C2A9679D946196D6CF Humor in the House of Commons, by Toby, M.P.] - "New York Times" article, 27 November, 1910
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9403E7DF1630E333A25756C2A9649D946196D6CF Toby, M.P. writes of the English Peerage] - "New York Times" article, 25 December, 1910
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F05E3D61E3CE633A2575BC2A9619C946396D6CF Governor Woodrow Wilson as his biographer knows him] - "New York Times" article, 28 July, 1912
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F03E4D7133BE633A25750C2A9659C946296D6CF Toby, M.P.] - Review of Sixty years in the Wilderness, Vol. 2, "New York Times" article, 23 March, 1913
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F07E5DD1630E233A25756C2A9619C946396D6CF Washington ghost disclosed by Lucy] - "New York Times" article, 25 July, 1912
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C07E3DE153CE533A2575AC0A9679C946095D6CF A Humorist writes History] - Review of The Diary of a Journalist, "New York Times" article, 9 January, 1921
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B0CE1D91731EF33A25757C2A9619C946095D6CF Men and Manners in Parliament] - Review of Men and Manner in Parliament, "New York Times" article, 24 July, 1921
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9801E6DD1E3FE432A25756C2A9609C946395D6CF Sir Toby, M.P. sketches Parliament] - Review of Lords and Commoners, "New York Times" article, 25 June, 1922
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9503E7DE1F3AE433A25753C1A96F9C946395D6CF Later Diary of Toby, M.P.] - Review of The Diary of a Journalist: Later Entries, "New York Times" article, 10 September, 1922
[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B00E7D71139E133A2575AC2A9669D946395D6CF Sir William Harcourt, Victorian Statesman] - Book review by Sir Henry Lucy, "New York Times" article, 29 October, 1922

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,717882,00.html Death notice] - notice of death in "TIME Magazine", 3 March, 1924

[http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?search=ss&sText=lucy&LinkID=mp02819 Portraits of Sir Henry Lucy] - Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery