Crawley Blue Plaques — John Leech

6 min readNov 2, 2023

On the way into the museum on the wall of the building to the left of the entrance there is a blue plaque. It is to John Leech who lived in the building from 1833 when he was a medical student. He was born on the 29th of August 1817 in London, the son of an Irish Coffee House Landlord (“a man”, on the testimony of those who knew him, “of fine culture, a profound Shakespearian, and a thorough gentleman.”) and a mother who was a descendant of Richard Bentley, the late seventeenth / early eighteenth century theologian.

He was educated at Charterhouse School, where William Makepeace Thackeray, his lifelong friend, was a fellow pupil, and at sixteen he began to study for the medical profession at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he won praise for the accuracy and beauty of his anatomical drawings whilst living in Crawley.

But his future lay on the drawing side of the line rather than the medical side.

He was eighteen when his first designs were published, a quarto of four pages, entitled Etchings and Sketchings by A. Pen, Esq., comic character studies from the London streets. Then he drew some political lithographs, did rough sketches for Bell’s Life, produced a popular parody on Mulready’s postal envelope.

On the death of Charles Dickens illustrator Robert Seymour in 1836, Leech unsuccessfully submitted his drawings for consideration to illustrate Dickens latest work, The Pickwick Papers. He wasn’t successful then, but his work was being featured in magazines. In 1840 Leech began had a series of etchings in Bentley’s Miscellany, where George Cruikshank had published his plates to Jack Sheppard and Oliver Twist, and was illustrating Guy Fawkes in feebler fashion.

His 1841 lithographic work, the “Portraits of the Children of the Mobility”, was an important series dealing with the humorous and pathetic aspects of London street “Arabs”. The book is scarce in its original form, but in 1875 two reproductions of the outline sketches for the designs were published; the whole series, and a finer photographic transcript of six of the subjects, which is more valuable than the original 1841 issue

And in 1841 he started illustrating for Punch Magazine, where Mark Lemon was the first editor, and who also lived in Crawley, and for whom there is a blue plaque on the building now occupied by Wildwood. His first contribution appeared in the issue of 7 August, a full-page illustration, entitled” Foreign Affairs of character studies from the neighbourhood of Leicester Square”.

In his work for Punch Magazine, Leech catered to contemporary prejudices, such as anti-Americanism and antisemitism and supported acceptable social reforms. Leech’s critical yet humorous cartoons on the Crimean War helped shape public attitudes toward heroism, warfare, and Britons’ role in the world. He was furthermore a pioneer in comics, creating the recurring character Mr. Briggs and some sequential illustrated gags.

In 1843 he did get his work included in a Dickens’ publication, as he had four plates included in “A Christmas Carol”, the front page, and the ghosts of Jacob Marley, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet To Come.

In 1845 Leech illustrated St Giles and St James in Douglas William Jerrold’s new Shilling Magazine. Then there were the broadly humorous etchings in the Comic History of England (1847–1848), and the still finer illustrations to The Comic History of Rome (1851), which show some exquisitely touches, like the fair faces rising from the surging water in the illustration “Cloelia and her Companions Escaping from the Etruscan Camp”. In the 1850’s there are etchings of sporting scenes, contributed, together with woodcuts, to the Handley Cross novels written by Robert Smith Surtees.

He continued to work for Punch, not only in the weekly publications, but in the almanacs and pocket-books. And from 1859 he also supplied large sporting scenes to The Illustrated London News. In 1862 there was a large exhibition of his most remarkable Punch drawings, which was very successful.

John Leech died on the 29th of October 1864, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery, two graves along from his lifelong friend William Makepeace Thackeray. He was said to be a rapid and indefatigable worker. He was observed producing three finished drawings on wood, designed, traced, and rectified, “without much effort as it seemed, between breakfast and dinner”.

There are further plaques to him, one in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, and one to him being visited by Charles Dickens in Hove. He was played by Simon Callow in the 2017 film The Man Who Invented Christmas which depicts the 1843 writing and production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Crawley Museum

Crawley Museum is a Grade II listed building on High Street Crawley. It was Formerly listed as Crawley Museum Centre, previously listed as No 103 (‘The Tree’) (offices of the Crawley Borough Council Housing and Estates Department)

It was listed on 21st June 1948 under listing number 1298877 and was amended 28th November 2019.

It is a late fifteenth to early sixteenth century timber-framed L-shaped two storey open hall-house embedded in a brick and brick faced building altered and extended in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. It is brick with part of first floor tile hung. There are tiled roofs but it is partly hung with Horsham slabs.

The south wing running east and west remains substantially intact. Internally a solar of three bays, now two rooms comprise the upper storey of this wing. The trusses, which are exposed, consist of principal cambered tie-beam with supporting brackets carrying king-post, collar and central purlin supported from the King-post by two way struts. The main uprights of the walls of this wing are stop chamfered.

A ground floor room at the west end of this wing has massive cross-beam and heavy close-set joists. The chimney beam of the open fireplace is exposed. Externally the chimney breast is of local Sussex stone and surmounted by an eighteenth century brick chimney stack. The hall range running north and south is marked by its higher roof-ridge. Its western slope is covered with Horsham slabs. It has been much altered and floors inserted but part of its timber-framed structure is visible internally. An addition has been made on the east side forming an entrance hall.

A two-storey wing running south extending the west front was added early in the eighteenth century when the west wall of the solar wing was faced in brick to match. The upper storey of the solar wing is tile hung. The north end of the house was rebuilt in brick in the nineteenth century and remodelled and replanned as servants’ quarters circa 1936 when the house was restored. Most of the windows are twentieth century steel casements.

The building now houses the Crawley Museum, which has many permanent exhibitions to the history of Crawley from its Iron Age settlements through to the new town expansion of the twentieth century. It also has a temporary exhibition space on the first floor which houses various displays during the year, and it is well worth a visit.

Plaque Details

Location — Crawley Museum, The Tree, 103 High Street, Crawley. RH10 1DD

Dedicated to — John Leech

Dedication Text — John Leech (1817–1864) who in 1843–48 illustrated the Christmas stories of Charles Dickens lived here as a medical student from 1833

Dedicated by — Crawley Arts Council & Awards For All

Date Installed — 2006

For other Crawley related pieces check out the list below