William Mecham was a British cartoonist and performer, taking the stage and pen name Tom Merry.

He was a professional caricaturist who gave 'Lightning Cartoon' presentations on the music hall

Music hall

Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...

 stage, and was the first celebrity of any kind to appear in a British film.

Cartoonist

William Mecham was born in the first quarter of 1853, in the parish of St Saviour, Southwark

Southwark

Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...

.

Merry was a cartoonist and political satirist, he created the centre spread in colour of The St Stephen's Review, a weekly magazine of political comment published from 1883 to 1892, when it became Big Ben, and closed the following year. Thirty four political lithographs, of statesmen of the era are in the collection of the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

. A number of presentation (signed) copies were also in the personal collection of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, with his father, Lord Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Churchill

Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill MP was a British statesman. He was the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and his wife Lady Frances Anne Emily Vane , daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry...

 as subject. He also published in the London edition of the American satirical Puck Magazine

Puck (magazine)

Puck was America's first successful humor magazine of colorful cartoons, caricatures and political satire of the issues of the day. It was published from 1871 until 1918.-History:...

, from January 1889 to June 1890.

Merry's musical hall stage act appears to have involved high speed drawing of subjects drawn both from the audience, and of famous figures from memory. The caricatures were drawn at a furious pace, as can be seen in the films that survive.

Early film

Birt Acres

Birt Acres

Birt Acres was a photographer and film pioneer.Born in Richmond, Virginia to English parents, he invented the first British 35 mm moving picture camera, the first daylight loading home movie camera and projector, Birtac, was the first travelling newsreel reporter in international film history and...

 filmed four separate performances of 'Tom Merry' drawing personalities famous in his day. Films included Tom Merry Lightning Artist Drawing Mr Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

 (1896) and Tom Merry Sketching Lord Salisbury (1896). Two further films were made, contemporaneous with Acres' films of the opening of the Kiel Canal

Kiel Canal

The Kiel Canal , known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal until 1948, is a long canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.The canal links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula....

, in June 1895. They were produced by Robert Paul and featured Merry drawing the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II (1895), and Prince Bismarck (1895). They were made to be shown as a part of the same performance, but the first record of the Merry films is as part of Robert Paul's first theatrical programme at the Alhambra Theatre

Alhambra Theatre

The Alhambra was a popular theatre and music hall located on the east side of Leicester Square, in the West End of London. It was built originally as The Royal Panopticon of Science and Arts opening on 18 March 1854. It was closed after two years and reopened as the Alhambra. The building was...

 on 25 March 1896.

The films presaged the animated cartoon. Merry could complete his caricatures in less than a minute, the practical length of the first film reels. To accommodate longer demonstrations, stop motion

Stop motion

Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...

 technology had to be developed.

Death

Merry also did illustrations for a book on Canvey Island

Canvey Island

Canvey Island is a civil parish and reclaimed island in the Thames estuary in England. It is separated from the mainland of south Essex by a network of creeks...

, he died before its publication, and a dedication in the book reads:

External links