Our Young Folk’s Weekly Budget

Our Young Folks Weekly Budget was launched by James Henderson as an offshoot of his Weekly Budget newspaper in 1871. In 1876 it lost the “Our” and gained an apostrophe while retaining the strapline of “To Inform. To Instruct. To Amuse.” There were usually three or four main story illustrations in each 16-page paper, with the first page almost entirely given over to the largest illustration, for the lead story.

Charles Pearce’s earliest stories for children were published in this paper, serialised over many weeks.

Many name and format changes occurred over the years:

• Our Young Folk’s Weekly Budget. The very first title page was missing the apostrophe, but this was added some time before Volume IV started. It started at 9″ × 12½″, 8 pages, price ½d. With the start of Volume III, the number of pages went up to 16 and the price increased to 1d.
• With the start of Volume IX, No. 289, 1 July 1876, the title changed to Young Folk’s Weekly Budget, though the running head wasn’t updated until two issues later. The size changed to 9½″ × 14″.
• In July 1879, with the start of Volume XV, it became Young Folks.
• In July 1880, the first number of Volume XVII, the size increased again to 11½″ × 16½″ but it went back to 8 pages.
• With Vol. 24, No. 733, 20 December 1884, the Christmas double issue, the title changed to The Young Folk’s Paper and, from the following number, the paper was doubled in size to 16 pages.
• With the start of Volume 39, No. 1075, on 4 July 1891 it became Old and Young, and remained that way until its last number, Vol. 49, No. 1353, 11 September 1896.
• In October 1896, Henderson was advertising its new penny journal, Folks-at-Home, with the line that it had much “to inform, to instruct, and to amuse,” but, as Frank Jay noted in his “Peeps into the Past”, it was really not a proper follow-on from Old and Young; it didn’t continue the issue and volume numbering of its predecessor, and it only lasted six months.

In 1874 Henderson published some of the stories that had been serialised over the previous three years in two series of books, called the “Large Series” and the “Small Series.” The illustrations in these books were the same size as in the original paper, so that former lead stories were part of the “Large Series,” and the others became part of the “Small.” Pearce’s stories were never the lead, so his stories to that point formed part of the “Small Series.”

Here is the list of books in the “Small Series,” priced at one shilling, from the announcement in Vol. IV., No. 173, dated 18 April 1874:

1. The Golden Island. By C. E. Pearce.
2. Young Tom Rodman. By J. A. Maitland.
3. Frank the Fisherboy. By C. E. Pearce.
4. Bob the Newsboy, and other Stories.
5. Billy Bo’swain. By C. E. Pearce.
6. The Morleys; or, the Orphans of Woodleigh Grange. By S. Holland.
7. Fred Hilton, the Soldier-Sailor: A Story of the Ashantee War. By J. A. Maitland.
8. Ding-Dong; or, Cicely Among the Beasts. By Bill Brave.
9. The Boy-King.
10. Barbara Westburn.

And the “Large Series,” at two shillings each:

1. Giant-Land; or, the Wonderful Adventures of Tim Pippin. By Roland Quiz.
2. Tim Pippin: His Further Adventures in Giant-Land. By Roland Quiz.
3. King Pippin. By Roland Quiz.
4. Fairydom; or, Dick and Daisy’s Adventures. By S. Holland.
5. Funny-Land; or, the Adventures of Young Prince Cole. By F. C. Thompson.

Gallery

I have just (December 2016) started to scan my issues of OYFWB as, as far as I am aware, there aren’t any copies freely available online. Unfortunately, this involves removing the binding, so I am destroying them in order to save them, and scanning will take some time. It will also likely happen in random order. I’ll link the thumbnails below to PDFs as I produce them. The PDFs are likely to be between 8 MiB and 10 MiB each.

I am interested in acquiring volumes of OYFYB for scanning, or talking to anyone who might be able to provide me with copies of Charles Pearce’s stories.