Chums

“Things have changed since those days of Chums,” said Sir Max with a smile.

“Everything has changed. When I sent down number one of Chums to the printers the horse omnibuses rattled through the streets of London; there were no tubes or electric trains; no wireless; no motors -- and, indeed, hardly any of the present conditions which we now accept as part and parcel of daily life.” -- Sir Max Pemberton, the Founder of Chums, (1931)

Max Pemberton was born on the 19th of June in 1863, a native of Birmingham. On entering journalism one of his early associates was Alfred Harmsworth, who became Lord Northcliffe. As a boy Harmsworth wrote a ripping penny dread called “The Black Hand,” never published, in collaboration with his friend Percy Westerman. It is true that Pemberton approached Cassell’s with the idea for a boy’s story paper, but Cassell’s director told him that the firm did not enter into partnerships. “We are thinking of starting a paper for boys. Will you take charge of it at the salary of four hundred pounds a year?”

Pemberton described Chums as “a modest success from the outset, though in my opinion Cassell’s hampered it by the form they adopted -- a page of two columns in the fashion of the Spectator… The size chosen was almost impossible for illustrations and within a year we had to go back to the form of the old B.O.P. (that excellent thing) and to give the boys their expected 3 columns.”

Max Pemberton edited Chums from only 1892 to 1894. He resigned when his first novel “The Iron Pirate,” became a bestseller. Pemberton’s successor was Ernest Foster, who edited until 1907. Pemberton returned to Cassell’s in 1896, and until 1906 was the editor of Cassells’ Magazine. His Most popular novel was “The Iron Pirate” published in 1893 in Chums. “Even to this day (1931) I cannot get away from the Pirate. When I was at Miami, in Florida, a stranger came up to me, smiling and holding out his engineers’ hand, and said, “I read your CHUMS as a boy, and still remember the good old Iron Pirate!” I met with a similar incident in Quebec; and while turning over some papers in a railway bookstall in New York; the head clerk spotted me and said, “Gee! Your Pirate was great stuff!”

“D. H. Parry, who knew every button on every uniform in the British Army, brought his drums and fifes and wrote me “For Glory and Renown,” a soldier’s story which many old boys remember to this day,” said Max Pemberton, of the first story in Chums first number.

Cassell & Co. published this in hard-cover as “For Glory and Renown: a story of the Wars.” David Harold Parry, the author, was born in 1868. Parry was the grand old man of Chums until 1935, and died in 1950. One of his latter serials was in the 1934-35 Chums Annual, “The Tiger of Tangier, a stirring story of fighting in North Africa in the Days of Charles the Second.” The illustrator was Paul Hardy, who when available was the artist of choice for serials written by Parry or S. Walkey.

S. Walkey’s first serial was “In Quest of Sheba’s Treasure,” which ran through the 1895-1896 volumes. A Canadian from Nova Scotia, George Hutchinson, was the illustrator. Hutchinson would also contribute 18 drawings to Chums serialization of “Treasure Island,” which ran from 29 Aug 1894- 2 Jan 1895. “Treasure Island; or, the Mutiny of the Hispaniola,” illustrated by William Boucher, cartoonist on “Judy,” first appeared in Volume 19 of James Henderson’s “Young Folks” from October 1, 1881, to January 28, 1882. Stevenson also contributed “The Black Arrow,” running from June to October, 1883, and “Kidnapped,” May to July, 1886.

George Hutchinson shipped out of Nova Scotia as a cabin boy when he was fourteen. Tiring of his job he determined to become a painter and studied in London and Paris. Hutchinson worked some time as a portrait painter and found success as an illustrator and cartoonist for the comic paper Ariel. The Review of Reviews wrote that “Like Mr. Bryan, Mr. Hutchinson never takes notes. His drawings are all done, however, when he gets home, while for his types of faces he relies on his observations on ‘bus, tram, or railway.” In 1892 he illustrated Doyle’s “A Study in Scarlet” for Ward & Lock.

Frank Hubert Shaw (pseudonym; Grenville Hammerton) was born 24 Oct 1878. He joined the Royal Navy as an apprentice on a windjammer and rose in rank to Captain. He served as a Naval sea plane pilot in 1916. His first major serial, “The Peril of the Motherland,” began in Chums on 22 April 1908, with England invaded by the current bugbear of Russia. Just before Christmas 1913 the editor wrote “Our old friend Captain Shaw has just come in to see me after a long trip in the north of Africa and through the lands of the Sahara desert. He looked so brown and full of fight that I immediately suggested another serial…” Capt. Shaw revived the future war theme on 13 Dec 1913 with the serial “Lion’s Teeth and Eagle’s Claws,” with England now invaded by Germany. The serial ended 25 April 1914 and England was in the real war by 5 August 1914.

Pemberton styled Chums originally on the Boys’ Own Paper, founded in 1879 by the Religious Tract Society. They were similar in that Chums followed the format of the BOP, including the yearly issue of Annuals, but the BOP was a no-nonsense publication that hectored its readers on cleanliness and the dangers of self-abuse. Over time Chums became closer in spirit to penny dreadful papers like the Boys’ of England, featuring thrilling historical stories with unabashed violence, school stories, and a chummy editorial style. Chums serials were better written, dropping the melodrama of Brett’s Boys’ of England for a more realistic style of writing.

It would be impossible to list all the authors who ever worked on Chums. They included D. H. Parry, Robert Louis Stevenson (second serialization of Treasure Island), Captain Frank Shaw, Max Pemberton, S. Walkey, Barry Pain, G. A. Henty, Sax Rohmer, James Oliver Curwood, Sydney Horler, John Hunter, Hylton Cleaver (sports journalist), Wingrove Willson (r.n. Walter Light Herrod,) Richard Bird, Gunby Hadath, Major Charles Gilson, Eric Wood, D. H. Parry, George E. Rochester, John Mackie, Percy F. Westerman, S. Walkey, Fred W. Young, Herbert Maxwell, Alfred Judd, Andrew Soutar, Thompson Cross, and Ivor Gresham.

The artists and cartoonists who illustrated Chums included John Abbey, Gordon Browne, Tom Browne, George Hutchinson, Cecil Glossop, Paul Hardy, Harry Lane, Stanley Berkeley, Albert Morrow, George Soper, ‘Lang’, Thomas Somerfield, H. Valda, Serge Drigin, J. T. Staniland, Herbert Bone, R. Caton-Woodville, Stanley L. Wood, H. E. Brock, Fred Bennett, H. L. Shindler, Moon Goodman, F. R., Sherie, T. Edward Marhew, Robert Strange, Eric Parker, and G. M. Payne

Draycot Montague Dell was the editor of Chums from 1926 until 1939. He contributed the serial “Ghosts of the Spanish Main” to Chums in 1934, and in 1933 co-authored, with Edgar Wallace, the short story “King Kong,” in Cinema Weekly. Cassell’s published Chums weekly and monthly until January 1927 when it was taken over by Amalgamated Press. After 1934 only the Annuals were published, every September, until paper shortages killed off both Chums and the Boys’ Own Paper in 1941. There were 48 Chums Annuals in total.

D. H. Parry:

For Glory and Renown, Serialized in Chums beginning in Vol. I, No. 1, 14 Sept 1892

For Glory and Renown: a story of the Wars, Cassell & Co., 1895

Britain’s Roll of Glory; or, the Victoria Cross, its heroes, and their valour, 1895

The Death or Glory Boys: the Story of the 17^th Lancers, Cassell & Co., 1899

The Scarlet Scouts, a story of the great war, illustrated by Dudley Tennant, 1899

Gilbert the Outlaw, Cassell & Co., illustrated by C. E. Brock, 1917

With Haig on the Somme, 1917

The History of the Great War, London: Waverly, no date.

Saber and Spurs!: a tale of the peninsular war, 1926

Sources:

Sixty Years Ago and After, by Max Pemberton, London: Hutchinson & Co., 1935.

An Interview with the Founder of “Chums,” by Toy Vise, Chums Annual 1931-32, p. 23.

Seas of Memory, by Frank Hubert Shaw, London: Oldbourne, 1958.

Caricatures of the Month: George Hutchinson, London: Review of Reviews, 1892.

The Men Behind Boys' Fiction, by W.O.G. Lofts and D. J. Adley, London: Howard Baker, 1970.

Story Paper Index

Samuel Walkey (1871-1953)

Samuel Walkey was born at Kilkhampton, Cornwall on 10 July 1871 and was employed by a bank at 16 years of age. His wife encouraged him to write and he began working nights on romantic fiction for Cassel & Co. His stories appeared in The Storyteller, Cassell's Magazine, The Corner Magazine, Cassell's Saturday Journal, and Chums. The founder and first editor of Chums was Max Pemberton, author of “The Iron Pirate,” and a boyhood friend of Alfred Harmsworth, who was soon to dominate the field of story-paper publishing with the Marvel, Pluck and Union Jack. Chums was issued in penny weekly numbers from 14 September 1892 to 1932 and then published as an annual until its demise in 1941.

Walkey’s first Chums serial, “In Quest of Sheba’s Treasure” was published in 1895 and the serial he considered his best, “Rogues of the Fiery Cross,” in 1896. Numerous pirate and adventure serials followed including “The Pirates of Skeleton Island,” “Yo! Ho! For the Spanish Main,” “With Redskins on the Warpath,” and his final Chums serial “Rogues of the Roaring Glory.” Many of these were printed in hardcover in Britain and the United States following serialization. Paul Hardy (1862-1948), well-known for his illustration work for The Strand, was the artist most frequently associated with Walkey serials.

Walkey was best known for his gritty pirate stories but he also wrote numerous short stories featuring the two Jack-a-Lanterns, Marquis and Moonlight, with their Mystery Men, which were just as popular. Walkey described the Jack-a-Lanterns unusual background in Chums no 1096, 13 Sept 1913, in a revival of what were by then old characters. Walkey wrote in the old penny dreadful style: one (sometimes long) line at a time.

“Who was Jack-a-Lantern?

Those of you who have read the early adventures of that chivalrous and mysterious Englishman will not require to be reminded of his exploits; but there may be others to whom as yet Jack-a-Lantern is unknown.

I must therefore tell you, that at the beginning of the Reign of Terror, when the prisons were crowded with aristocrats -- when the guillotine had commenced its dreadful work -- when the most harmless and innocent people were hounded to death by monsters such as Fouquier-Tinville, when Paris had become a City of Blood -- when the vilest and lowest of ruffians were allowed to rage like wild beasts through the streets, killing those whom they willed or whom they were pleased to call aristocrats -- stories were whispered of a mysterious Englishman who, ‘twas said, flitted from prison to prison, or from château to château or from one scene of execution to another; and generally, whenever he appeared, the guillotine was cheated of a victim.

People whispered that he possessed superhuman powers -- that he had been seen in two places at the same moment -- that, while he was being pursued, a pale blue flame would dance or hover around him.

Some said that at times he passed quite fearlessly along the roads, wearing no disguise.

His usual costume was a suit of silver-grey; he was exceedingly handsome; and undoubtedly an Englishman.

As no one knew his name, people called him Jack-a-Lantern.

The revolutionary spies were always upon his trail; but again and again he fooled them, and his little vessel, the Never Tell, carried scores of those who had escaped the guillotine to the hospitable shores of England.

A boy named Chris Chesney was fortunate enough to share in many of his adventures; and Captain Barleycorn of the Never Tell was a character whom the commanders of the French frigates longed to capture, so many times had he given them the slip at the very moment when they believed they had the black barque at their mercy.

Later, a band of Englishmen, known as the Mystery Men, took service under the famous Jack-a-Lantern, and became the despair of the revolutionary spies.

Some of you have read of Sir Charles Mings and his companions.

You also know that in the course of time it was rumoured throughout France that the Jack-a-Lantern had a double, and that there were in reality TWO JACK-A-LANTERNS.

One was called by the Mystery Men “the Marquis,” the other was named “Moonlight.”

If, therefore, you care to listen to the further adventures of the two Jack-a-Lanterns, if you care to hear more of the Mystery Men, you will find in the following stories deeds no less exciting, no less daring, than of the heroes’ earlier exploits.”

Outside of the Cassell company, Walkey contributed pirate tales to Aldine’s Boys’ Own Library (1908-1914, 93 nos.) “Pirates of El Dorado” and “Rovers of Black Island,” both with covers by Robert Prowse Jnr. One title, “Cruise of the “No Surrender”” appeared in Boys’ Friend Library issued by Amalgamated Press. Those three titles are held at the Toronto Public Library in Ontario. Walkey wrote two adult-oriented adventure novels for Cassell’s: “for the Sake of the Duchess,” and “The Lovers of Lorraine.” Boy’s author Geoffrey Trease began his own writing career under the influence of Walkey’s Chums serials. Samuel Walkey died at his home in Dawlish, a seaside village on the South Devon coast on 29 Mar, 1953.