was the first form of advertisement which had any marked effect upon English commerce. As the fairs of the middle ages, with the tedious and hazardous journeys they involved, gradually gave place to a more convenient system of trade, the 15th century brought the invention of printing, and led the Way to the modern development of advertising. The Americans, to whom the elaboration of newspaper advertising is primarily due, had but just founded the first English-speaking community in the western hemisphere when the first newspaper was published in England. But although the first periodical publication containing news appeared in the month of May 1622, the first newspaper advertisement does not seem to have been published until April 1647. It formed a part of No. 13 of Perfect Occurrences of Every Daie journall in Parliament, and other Moderate Intelligence, and it read as follows:—
A Book applauded by the Clergy of England, called The Divine Right of church Government, Collected by sundry eminent Ministers in the Citie of London; Corrected and augmented in many places, with a briefe Reply to certain Queries against the Ministery of England; Is printed and published for Joseph Hunscot and George Calvert, and are to be sold at the Stationers’ Hall, and at the Golden Fleece in the Old Change.
Among the Mercuries, as the weekly newspapers of the day were called, was the Mercurius Elencticus, and in its 45th number, published on the 4th of October 1648, there appeared the following advertisement:—
The Reader is desired to peruse a Sermon,
Entituled A Looking-Glasse for Levellers,
Preached at St. Peters, Paules Wharf, on Sunday, Sept. 24th 1648,
by Paul Knell, Mr. of Arts. Another Tract called A Reflex
upon our Reformers, with a prayer for the Parliament.
In an issue of the Mercurius Politicus, published by Marchmont Nedham, who is described as “perhaps both the ablest and the readiest man that had yet tried his hand at a newspaper,” there appeared in January 1652 an advertisement, which has often been erroneously cited as the first among newspaper advertisements. It read as follows:—
Irenodia Gratulatoria, a heroic poem, being a congratulatory panegyrick for my Lord General’s return, summing up his successes in an exquisite manner. To be sold by John Holden, in the New Exchange, London, Printed by Thomas Newcourt, 1652.
The article “On the Advertising System,” published in the Edinburgh Review for February 1843, contains the fullest account of early English advertising that has ever been given, and it has been very freely drawn upon by all writers who have since discussed the subject. But it describes this advertisement in the Mercurius Politicus as “the very first,” and the discovery of the two earlier instances above quoted was due to the researches of a contributor to Notes and Queries.
In The Crosby Records, the commonplace-books of William Blundell, there is an interesting comment, dated 1659, on the lack of advertising facilities at that period—
It would be very expedient if each parish or village might have some place, as the church or smithy, wherein to publish (by papers posted up) the wants either of the buyer or the seller, as such a field to be let, such a servant, or such a service, to be had, &c. There was a book published in London weekly about the year 1657 which was called (as I remember) The Publick Advice. It gave information in very many of these particulars.
A year later the same diarist says—
There is an office near the Old Exchange in London called the office of Publick Advice. From thence both printed and private information of this useful nature are always to be had. But what they print is no more than a leaf or less in a diurnal. I was in this office. The diurnal consisted of sixteen pages quarto in 1689.
In No. 62 of the London Gazette, published in June 1666, the first advertisement supplement was announced—
An Advertisement—Being daily prest to the Publication of Books, Medicines, and other things not properly the business of a Paper of Intelligence, This is to notifie, once for all, that we will not charge the Gazette with Advertisements, unless they be matter of State: but that a Paper of Advertisements will be forthwith printed apart, & recommended to the Publick by another hand.
In No. 94 of the same journal, published in October 1666, there appeared a suggestion that sufferers from the Great Fire should avail themselves of this means of publicity—
Such as have settled in new habitations since the late Fire, and desire for the convenience of their correspondence to publish the place of their present abode, or to give notice of Goods lost or found may repair to the corner House in Bloomsbury on the East Side of the Great Square, before the House of the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer, where there is care taken for the Receipt and Publication of such Advertisements.
The earlier advertisements, with the exception of formal notices, seem to have been concerned exclusively with either books or quack remedies. The first trade advertisement, which does not fall within either of these categories, was curiously enough the first advertisement of a new commodity, tea. The following advertisement appeared in the Mercurius Politicus, No. 435, for September 1658—
That excellent and by all Physitians approved China Drink, called by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations Tay, alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a cophee-house in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London.
The history of slavery, of privateering and of many other curious incidents and episodes of English history during the 17th and 18th centuries might be traced by examination of the antiquated advertisements which writers upon such subjects have already collected. In order that space may be found for some consideration of the practical aspects of modern advertising, the discussion of its gradual development must be curtailed. Nor is it necessary to preface this consideration by any laboured statement of the importance which advertising has assumed.
It is a matter of common knowledge that several business houses are to be found in Great Britain, and a larger number in the United States, who spend not less than £50,000 a year in advertising, while one patent medicine company, operating both in England and the United States, has probably spent not less than £200,000 in Great Britain in one year, and an English cocoa manufacturer is supposed to have spent £150,000 in Great Britain. Some of the best works of artists as distinguished as Sir John Millais, Sir H. von Herkomer and Mr Stacy Marks have been scattered broadcast by advertisers. The purchase of Sir John Millais’ picture “Bubbles” for £2200 by the proprietors of a well-known brand of soap is probably the most remarkable instance of the expenditure in this direction which an advertiser may find profitable. There are in London alone more than 350 advertising agents, of whom upwards of a hundred are known as men in a considerable way of business. The statements which from time to time find currency in the newspapers with regard to the total amount of money annually spent upon advertising in Great Britain and in the United States are necessarily no better than conjectures, but no detailed statistics are required in order to demonstrate what every reader can plainly see for himself, that advertising has definitely assumed its position as a serious field of commercial enterprise.
Advertising, as practised at the beginning of the 20th century, may be divided into three general classes:—
1. Advertising in periodical publications.
2. Advertising by posters, signboards (other than those placed upon premises where the advertised business is conducted), transparencies and similar devices.
3. Circulars, sent in quantities to specific classes of persons to whom the advertiser specially desired to address himself.
It may be noted at the outset that advertising in periodical publications exercises a reflex influence upon these publications. The daily, weekly and monthly publications of the day are accustomed to look to advertisements for so large a part of their revenue that the purchaser of a periodical publication receives much greater value for his money than he could reasonably expect from the publisher if the aggregate advertising receipts did not constitute a perpetual subsidy to the publisher. It is not to be supposed, however, that the receipts from the sale of a paper cover all its expenses and that the advertising revenue is all clear profit. The average newspaper reader would be amazed if he knew at how great a cost the day’s news is laid before him. A dignified journal displays no inclination to cry from the housetops the vastness of its expenditure, but from time to time an accident enables the public to obtain information in this connexion. The evidence taken by a recent Copyright Commission disclosed that the expenditure of the leading English journal upon foreign news alone amounted to more than £50,000
