Thomas Bewick (most noted for his History of British Birds) was born in 1753 in Northumberland, England He was a self taught artist and apprenticed as an engraver on metal when he was 14. He was accustomed to the fineness of detail available in copper and silver engraving, but he preferred the use of wood. So Bewick began engraving on the end grain of wood blocks, rather than the customary which was to engrave with-the-grain. By using the tools of the metal engraver, he was able to engrave highly-detailed vignettes.

Bewick’s innovations in wood engraving:

Click above to view entire print (left click to zoom once image loads).

• Use of dense, hard, fine-grained wood, namely from the Box tree.

• Making his cuts across the grain, not with the grain

• Use of the finer tools of the metal engravers.

These 3 aspects of Bewick’s process, ultimately had enormous consequences through the 1800's on wood engraving. Until this time, detailed work was printed from steel or copper engravings but the plates were not suitable for long print runs. Wood engravings, using Bewick’s innovations, could not only stand up to lengthy pressruns (up to 900,000 impressions) but had the advantage of being able to be locked and printed with the type.

This advancement in wood engraving coincided with the great upheaval in social structure during the Industrial Revolution. The rising literate middle class clamored for illustrations of the new scientific and technological advancements; documentation of plant, animal and bird species; of far-away lands and especially illustrations of military exploits. The entrepreneurs of the day were quick to provide their customers with a proliferation of images in the pictorial press, magazines and books.

Wood engraving, with its ability to be combined with printed text, virtually, revolutionized journalism in the 1800's Ultimately, this brought about the rise of the vastly popular illustrated newspapers. Readers were provided with a vast palette of visual stimulation spanning depictions of battle scenes to the illustration of the grandest balls held by Queen Victoria. Wood engraving was to the 1800's what the Photograph was to the 1900's.

This is a simplification of the process of creating a wood engraving, from the tree to the page.