‘Canadian Illustrated News’ featured new Leggotype illustrations

The first newspaper in Canada to publish quality illustrations, Canadian Illustrated News printed thousands of beautiful pictures to captivate readers.

Cover for August 14, 1880 issue of the Canadian Illustrated News magazine-style newspaperEd.  The public was enchanted by Leggotype. Library and Archives Canada/Wikimedia Commons.

Publisher George Édouard Desbarats held a strong and wide philosophy about his country and his new newspaper. “By picturing to our own people the broadd dominion they possess, its resources and progress, its monuments and industry, its great men and great events, such a paper would teach them to know and love it better, and by it they would learn to feel still prouder,” Desbarats said in the premier edition of Canadian Illustrated News. The paper became the first to feature quality illustrations.

Weekly Canadian Newspaper Debuted 1869

A cross between a newspaper and a magazine, Canadian Illustrated News (CIN) and its French-Canadian counterpart, L’Opinion publique (OP), were fountains of articles, news, fiction stories and information on all sorts of topics. The written content was different between the newspapers, the French version focussing on the literary and political flavour of Quebec. Canadian Illustrated News debuted on October 30, 1869; L’Opinion began publication in the next year. Printed in Montreal, Quebec, CIN was “a 16-page weekly with a 10,000 initial print run,” said the McCord Museum in “Canadian Illustrated News and L’Opinion publique, Canada’s First Illustrated Newspaper.” L’Opinion, “which began as an 8-page weekly with a 5,200 print run was published on Thursdays from 1870 to 1883.”

While the printed word was fascinating in both versions, readers were particularly enthusiastic about the plethora of magnificent illustrations throughout the two publications. “The imagination is so closely linked to the perceptive faculties, that the speediest and surest way of reaching the mind and impressing thereon facts and objects, is to lay them vividly before the eyes (the main feeder of the imagination) either in their reality, or in the drama, or even through their image painted or engraved,” said Debarats about drawing in readers. The artworks were presented in fine detail through Leggotype, the newly-invented service of half-tone printing.

Leggotype – Half-Tone Illustration

A partner of Desbarats, William Augustus Leggo was owner of the W.A. Leggo Company, a firm specializing in lithography, engraving and electrotyping. An inventor, Leggo devised a distinctive chemical reproduction technique. The technique used in CIM gave the newspaper the advantage of being first to have a consistent rate of picture quality. “This chemical process involved the development of relief engravings, or half-tones, from photographs,” stated “Canadian Illustrated News: Images in the news: 1869-1883” at Library and Archives Canada.

William Augustus Leggo (1830-1915), Inventor of Leggotype, half-tone printing used in Canadian Illustrated News. Library and Archives Canada/MIKAN 3630092

Leggo patented his modern system in 1865; in 1869, he also “patented a new method for reproducing photographs, known as granulated photography,” according to Library and Archives Canada’s “Made in Canada: Patents of Invention and the Story of Canadian Innovation.” The patents were in Leggo’s name only. His business partner, Desbarats, was not included as co-inventor. The innovative Leggo continued to improve his processes and, “on June 3, 1871, the first granulated photograph showing the custom-house in Montréal appeared in the Canadian Illustrated News.”

The first issue of CIM honoured Prince Albert with a cover illustration in half-tone. Over the fourteen years of publication, the newspaper printed over 15,000 photographs using Leggo’s amazing techniques.

Desbarats a Lawyer and Printer

Born at Quebec on April 5, 1838, George Édouard Desbarats attended school in Massachusetts. He entered Collège Sainte-Marie in 1852, completing his studies in philosophy at age 17. Enrolling at the University of Laval, Desbarats studied law. A clerk at his uncle’s firm, the young Desbarats was called to the Lower Canada Bar in 1859. Returning to work with his father in the printing business, Desbarats took an interest in book publishing. He published biographies, historical works, religious and science books, numbering more than a dozen over five years. On the death of his father, Desbarats took over the printing firm.

Not all was smooth for the printer, though. Desbarats received death threats when “he put up a plaque on the wall of the building to honour the memory of his friend and tenant,” the murdered Thomas D’Arcy McGee, said Claude Galarneau in Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online’s entry “Desbarats, George Édouard.” Desbarats’ business was set ablaze, destroying the printing equipment, lithography plates and illustrations for other publications in the works. Desbarats was undaunted, rebuilding his venture again into a thriving operation. On February 18, 1893, the prosperous publisher died in Montréal. The father of two daughters and five sons, Desbarats was married to Lucianne Bossé.

The Canadian Illustrated News closed in 1883. L’Opinion publique had folded six years early in 1877, unable to maintain a loyal readership in Quebec.

Sources:

• “Canadian Illustrated News and L’Opinion publique, Canada’s First Illustrated Newspaper,” McCord Museum
• “Canadian Illustrated News: Images in the news: 1869-1883,” Library and Archives Canada Accessed October 27, 2011
• Galarneau, Claude, “Desbarats, George Édouard,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online Accessed October 27, 2011