n John Dunton was a strange fellow, to say the verynleast. Born in 1659, to a third generation clergyman (all of whom were callednJohn), his mother died shortly after his birth and his father, crippled byngrief, retired to Ireland, leaving young John in England. He returned eightnyears later and set about educating his son, with a view to him following thenfamily tradition in the clergy, but the boy with ‘unsettled mercurial humour’nhad ideas of his own. Unable, or unwilling, to apply himself to his studies, atnfourteen he was apprenticed to a bookseller, ran away, was brought back againnand then learnt to ‘love books’.
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| John Dunton |
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nWhen he had served his indenture, henset up his own business, in which had early success and large sales, and afterna series of amorous flirtations he settled down and married Elizabeth Annesleynin 1682 (Samuel Wesley, later the father of John and Charles Wesley, thenfounders of Methodism, married another sister and it is believed that DanielnDefoe married a third sister).
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| Samuel Wesley |
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nWhen trade dipped during the Monmouth Rebellionn(and in which he probably dabbled on the losing side), he spent time innAmerica, selling books and attempting to avoid creditors after standing suretynfor his brother, and returned a year later. He then spent the next ten months indoors,nhiding from the creditors, until he grew bored with the confinement, dressed inn‘woman’s cloaths’ as a disguise and headed for Europe, where he managednto raise enough to cover the debt.
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nTwo years later, back in London, he opened anbookshop at the sign of the Black Raven and spent the next ten years sellingnbooks, prospered once again and also inherited an estate on the death of ancousin in 1692. It was during this time that he embarked on a series ofn‘projects’, the first and most successful of which was his ingenious ThenAthenian Gazette. Whilst he was out walking over St George’s Fields withnfriends, Dunton suddenly came to a halt and announced,
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n“Well, sirs, I have anthought I’ll not exchange for Fifty guineas.”n
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| The Athenian Gazette – the First Volume 1691 |
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nThis idea, as are all thenbest ones, was simple – members of the public wrote in with questions andnthese, with the answers, were published in a printed publication. Dunton’snoriginal advertisement read,
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n“All Persons whatever may be resolved gratis innany Question that their own satisfaction or curiosity shall prompt ’em to, ifnthey send their Questions by a Penny Post letter to Mr. Smith atnhis Coffee-house in Stocks Market in the Poultry, where orders arengiven for the reception of such Letters, and care shall be taken for theirnResolution by the next Weekly Paper after their sending.”n
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| Advertisement for the Athenian Mercury |
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nHenthought, originally, to call it The Querist, but he was inspired tonchange this by Chapter 17, Verse 21 of the Acts of the Apostles,
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n“Fornall the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothingnelse, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.”n
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nThe name didn’t lastnlong, as the prestigious establishment paper the London Gazette objectednto the similarity to its own name and so
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nThe Athenian Gazette or ThenCausistical Mercury, Resolving all the Nice and Curious Questions Proposed bynthe Ingeniousn
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nwas truncated to the much snapper The Athenian Mercury.
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| Now renamed as The Athenian Mercury – Number 3 – March 31st 1690 |
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nIt was a revolutionary notion, as previous newspapers were exactly that, newsnsheets, which reported the news and nothing else. News was almost entirely thenchronicling of political events, whereas such happenings as the presentation ofna new play or the publication of a new novel, any reference to science or anynof the arts were largely ignored.
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nIn 1680, something different appeared in the MercuriusnLibrarius; or a Faithful Account of all Books and Pamphlets, a fortnightlynwork that was little more than a booksellers’ trade catalogue, but Dunton’s Atheniannproject was intended to interest the ‘literary’ gentleman as well as the ‘mannin the street’.
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| The first number of the original The Athenian Gazette – March 17 1690 |
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nThe first edition appeared on Tuesday March 17thn1690 OS (1691 in the Gregorian calendar), and for the first three editions itnwas published on Tuesdays, thereafter on Tuesdays and Saturdays, at one pennynper issue, which was a single folio sheet, printed on both sides. After thenfirst six volumes were complete, publication was extended to Monday, Tuesday,nFriday and Saturday, but the weight of the labour became too much and it soonnreverted to the Tuesday and Saturday editions.
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nAt the heart of the project laynthe Athenian Society, a supposed body of learned men, rather like thenRoyal Society or the Lunar Society, and it was claimed that it consisted ofnwell over a dozen members, whose numbers included a Divine, a Philosopher, anPhysician, a Poet, a Mathematician, a Lawyer, a Civilian, a Chyrurgion, annItalian, a Spaniard, a French-man and a Dutch-man, but this was just anpretence, and in reality, it was just a loose affiliation of scribblers andnhack-writers, with a core formed by Dunton and his associates.
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| The Athenian Gazette or Casuistical Mercury – Vol 2 |
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nThe firstnmeeting of the Athenian Society, according to Dunton, took place ‘innmy brain’ but when the magnitude of the project became evident (in thenfirst couple of weeks they received over four thousand questions), he wasnjoined by his brother-in-law Samuel Wesley, a mathematician Richard Sault andnoccasionally, although he was never a full, paid member of the Society, by Rev JohnnNorris.
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nTomorrow – what happened when the public wrote in.
