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CADELL,
anciently Cadella, a surname which has acquired a high standing in the
literary history of our country, from its connexion with the publication
of some of the most valuable and standard works of modern times, and
particularly the principal family of this name in Scotland is Cadell of
Cockenzie, now Tranent, in East Lothian. The name is supposed to be
originally Welsh, but is more likely to have been of French origin, and is
the same as Calder (See CALDER, surname of.]
CADELL, ROBERT,
an eminent publisher, whose connexion with Sir Walter Scott’s works will
perpetuate his name, was born at Cockenzie on the 16th December
1788. He was the son of Mr. Cadell of Cockenzie in East Lothian, and about
1807 entered into the employment of the late Mr. Archibald Constable, the
eminent publisher. About the end of 1811, he was admitted into partnership
with him, on the retirement of Mr. A.G. Hunter of Blackness from the firm.
The business was for a long period extensively carried on under the
well-known firm of Constable and Company. He married in 1817 the daughter
of Mr. Constable, who died in a year afterwards; and in January 1821, he
married Miss Mylne, daughter of Mr. George Mylne, accountant in Edinburgh.
By this lady, who survived him, he had eight daughters.
In 1826, after
the failure of Constable and Co., Mr. Cadell became the sole publisher of
Scott’s works, In Lockhart’s life of his father-in-law there are some very
interesting notices relative to Cadell’s connexion with the great
novelist, who has recorded in his Diary that “Constable without Cadell is
like getting the clock without the pendulum; the one having the ingenuity,
the other the caution of the business.” Sir Walter’s opinion of him is
thus favourably expressed in his Diary, at the time his publishers were
about to fail: – “Cadell came at eight to communicate a letter from Hurst
and Robinson, intimating they had stood the storm. I shall always think
the better of Cadell for this – not merely because ‘his feet are beautiful
upon the mountains who brings good tidings,’ but because he showed feeling
– deep feeling, poor fellow. He, who I thought had no more than his
numeration-table, and who, if he had his whole counting-house full of
sensibility, had yet his wife and children to bestow it upon. I will not
forget this, if all keeps right. I love the virtues of rough-and-round men
– the others are apt to escape in salt rheum, salvolatile, and a white
pocket-handkerchief.”
A large stock of
Sir Walter’s works in the hands of his bankrupt publishers was sold off
for half its cost, a circumstance which created an impression among the
London booksellers that the value of the copyrights had been wrought out.
Mr. Cadell, however, had a different opinion, and having secure among the
members of his own family sufficient money to carry out a scheme which he
had quietly matured, he first communicated it to Mr. Ballantyne the
printer, and finding that he coincided with him in the calculations he had
made, they went together to Abbotsford to propound it to Sir Walter Scott.
In December 1827, Mr. Cadell became joint-proprietor of the copyright of
all Sir Walter’s works then published. Mr. Lockhart, in his ‘Life of
Scott,’ thus details the circumstances: – “The question as to the property
of the ‘Life of Napoleon,’ and ‘Woodstock’ having now been settled by the
arbiter, (Lord Newton) in favour of the author, the relative affairs of
Sir Walter and the creditors of Constable were so simplified that the
trustee on that sequestrated estate resolved to bring into the market,
with the concurrence of Ballantyne’s trustees, and, without further delay,
a variety of very valuable copyrights. This important sale comprised
Scott’s novels from “Waverley’ to “Quentin Durward’ inclusive, besides a
majority of the shares of the poetical works. Mr. Cadell’s family and
private friends were extremely desirous that he should purchase part at
least of these copyrights, and Sir Walter’s were not less so that he
should seize this last opportunity of recovering a share in the prime
fruits of his genius. The relations by this time established between him
and Cadell were those of strict confidence and kindness, and both saw well
that the property would be comparatively lost were it not secured; that
henceforth the whole should be managed as one unbroken concern. It was in
the success of an uniform edition of the Waverley novels, with prefaces
and notes by the author, that both anticipated the means of finally
extinguishing the debt of Ballantyne and Company; and, after some demur,
the trustees of that house’s creditors were wise enough to adopt their
views. The result was that the copyrights, exposed to sale for behoof of
Constable’s creditors, were purchased, one half for Sir Walter, the other
half for Cadell, at the price of eight thousand five hundred pounds, a sum
which was considered large at the time.
Sir Walter’s
Diary, of date December 20, 1827, has the following allusion to this
event: – “Anent the copyrights, the ‘pock puds’ were not frightened by our
high price. They came on briskly, four or five bidders abreast, and went
on till the lot was knocked down to Cadell at £8,500; a very large sum
certainly, yet he has been offered a profit on it already. The activity of
the contest serves to show the value of the property. On the whole, I am
greatly pleased with the acquisition.” “Well might the ‘pock puddings’
(the English booksellers),” continued Mr. Lockhart, “rue their timidity on
this day; but it was the most lucky one that ever came for Sir Walter
Scott’s creditors. A dividend of six shillings in the pound was paid at
this Christmas on their whole claims. The result of their high-hearted
debtor’s exertions between January 1826, and January 1828, was in all very
nearly £40,000. No literary biographer, in all likelihood, will ever have
such another fact to record. The creditors unanimously passed a vote of
thanks for the indefatigable industry which had achieved so much for their
behoof.”
Into this new
enterprise, which was a scheme of Mr. Cadell’s, he threw all the energy of
his character, his business skill, and the zeal springing from his
enthusiastic confidence in Sir Walter’s popularity, and his own unbounded
love and veneration for the Great Magician. The whole series of novels
were republished in small octavo five-shilling volumes, neatly got up,
with plates and embellished title-pages, and explanatory notes by the
author.
After the death
of Sir Walter, a fresh arrangement was come to with regard to the
copyright, of which Mr. Lockhart, in his ‘Life of Scott,’ gives the
following account: – “Shortly after Sir Walter’s death, his sons and
myself, as his executors, endeavoured to make such arrangements as were
within our power for completing the great object of his own wishes and
fatal exertions. We found the remaining principal sum of the Ballantyne
debt to be about £54,000. £22,000 had been insured upon his life; there
were some moneys in the hands of the trustees, and Mr. Cadell very
handsomely offered to advance to us the balance, about £30,000, that we
might, without further delay, settle with the body of creditors. This was
effected accordingly on the 2d of February, 1833, Mr. Cadell accepting, as
his only security, the right to the profits accruing from Sir Walter’s
copyright property and literary remains, until such times as this new and
consolidated obligation should be discharged.”
In May, 1847,
Mr. Cadell took upon himself all the remaining debts upon the estate, on
the transfer to him by the family of their remaining claim over Sir
Walter’s writings. This debt included an heritable bond over the lands of
Abbotsford for £10,000. This transaction Mr. Lockhart says “crowned a
long series of kind ser ices to the cause and memory of Sir Walter Scott.”
Mr. Cadell died
20th January 1849. His health had been in a declining state for
nearly a year. During the last few months of his life he was in treaty for
the sale of the entire copyrights, which were valued at the enormous sum
of £60,000. In 1851, they were purchased by Adam and Charles Black,
publishers in Edinburgh. Mr. Cadell issued Scott’s works in every form and
shape. There was an edition suited to every class of society, from the
splendid Abbotsford, on which he spent about £40,000, down to the cheap
people’s edition in parts, of which he used to boast that he sold about
70,000 copies. Sir Walter’s manuscripts were preserved by him with great
care, and it was with pride that he used to exhibit these literary
treasures to his friends. His taste was sound and discriminating, his
plans comprehensive and liberal, and his application unwearied. His
punctuality was almost proverbial. Exactly at nine o’clock every morning,
except Sunday, he entered his carriage at Ratho; and, along the road to
Edinburgh, the country people knew the time to a minute, by the appearance
of what they called “the Ratho coach.” The same order and regularity were
conspicuous at his place of business in St. Andrew’s square, Edinburgh. In
the beginning of 1845, Mr. Cadell had bought the estate of Ratho, where he
resided in his latter years.
The
name Cadell from the Dictionary of National Biography
Ian & All:
Strange that Ian should mention about the Doune Pistol-Makers. I had
been planning to put the following data out to the list but had not put
everything together, extracted from an article in The Scots Magazine,
May 1975, by A. C. McKerracher.
The small Perthshire village of Doune between Stirling and Callander was
know throughout the world as the home of the famous pistols which
possessed such mystery, such superb artistry, and such deadly accuracy
that they brought incredible sums in the 1600s and 1700s. Today they are
literally worth their weight in gold to collectors. Many are so valuable
they are kept only in bank vaults.
In the early 1600s Doune became a center for trade, civil and criminal
law, and for the sale of livestock. Being strategically located between
Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness, it was a magnet for Higlanders who
were anxious to purchase goods and especially firearms, for the North
was still turbulent with war.
In 1646 Thomas CADDELL settled in Doune, setting up business as a
gunsmith. He had come to Doune from the village of Muthill, 15 miles to
the north, where he had been a country blacksmith. His artistry and rare
skill is still a mystery. The Old Statistical Account state "This famous
tradesman possessed a most profound genius, and an inquisitive mind; and
though a man of no education, and remote from every means of instruction
in the mechanical arts, his study and perseverance brought his work to
such high degree of perfection that no pistol made in Britain excelled
or perhaps equalled those of his making either for sureness or beauty."
What confounded experts was his ignoring traditional and imprecise
forging of his own material. He apparently experimented and found the
surest metal which was easy to work yet in constant supply - horseshoe
nails. He took handfuls of nails, heating and hammering them into a flat
slab of metal and finally drew this out into a long steel ribbon. This
was again heated and beaten around an iron rod in a close, spiral twist.
After the rod was removed the roughly-shaped barrel was bored out to the
correct diameter and the outer surface filed down. It was designed to
fire a round lead shot about three-quarters of an inch in size. The
breech was attached with a breech plug screwed into the barrel. The
stock was one piece and was joined to the barrel, before the decoration
was applied. The end product was an all- steel pistol about 14 inches
long which ended with a ram's head butt and a subtle flared muzzle. The
entire pistol was covered with intricate Oriental and Celtic designs of
scrolls and spirals. The pistols were made in pairs for both left and
right-handed use. They were soon bought by Higland clansmen costing
between four and twenty quineas, a lifetime's savings to many. In later
years more expensive pistols inlaid with silver and gold were ordered by
noble families. A plaque was also inlaid into the stock for the maker's
name and coat-of-arms of its owner. The 9th Earl of Argyll, Sir
Archibald Campbell, was in possession of one of CADDELL's pistols when
he was captured crossing the River Cart in 1685, before he was executed
at Edinburgh. Doune pistol-making reached its peak during the 1700s. It
appears that the last gunsmith carried on his trade there until 1798.
Thomas CADDELL passed on his skill to his son Thomas, his grandson John
and apprentices John and Alexander Campbell, Thomas Murdock, Christie,
Bissett and Sutherland, who went on to a higher level of expertise. His
son Thomas continued to work in Doune. However, his grandson John
established a shop in Edinburgh and worked from 1730 to 1764. Thomas
Caddell's original workshop still exists, the derelict building behind
Taylor's Dairy in Doune Main Street has been restored and is a business
office. Today, pistols from Doune are displayed in almost every main
museum on the European continent. The oldest such weapon is of 1678 and
signed by Thomas Caddell, in the Neuchatel Museum, Switzerland.
All that now remains in Doune is the reminents of Thomas CADDELL's
workshop and the graves of generations of pistol makers in the old
overgrown graveyard of Kilmadock, Kilmadock parish, about a mile to the
west.
The early parish records between 1600 and 1800 showed births,
christenings, marriages and deaths for some 135 members of the CADDELL
family.
The artist, Foster Caddell of Voluntown, CT, owns one of the CADDELL
pistols. I have been communicating with Foster for several years. His
ancestors were from Scotland migrating to Nova Scotia in the 1700s prior
to coming to the USA.
Bill Caddell |
