For the first ten years Bradbury & Evans were printers, then added publishing in 1841 after they purchased
Punch magazine.
Edward Moxon, and
Chapman and Hall (publishers of
Charles Dickens). The inclusion of a monthly supplement,
Household Narrative, in the weekly
Household Words edited by Dickens was the occasion for a test case on newspaper taxation in 1851. Bradbury & Evans as publishers might have found themselves in the forefront of the ongoing campaign against "
taxes on knowledge"; but the initial court decision went in their favour. The government then tried amending the existing law, to duck public opinion, reversing the stand taken by the revenue on the definition of "newspaper". After Bradbury & Evans broke with Dickens in 1859, they founded the illustrated literary magazine
Once a Week, which competed with Dickens' new
All The Year Round (the successor to
Household Words). and
John Tenniel. In 1861 Evans' daughter, Bessie Evans, married Dickens' son,
Charles Dickens, Jr. The founders' sons,
William Hardwick Bradbury (1832–1892) and Frederick Moule Evans (1832–1902), continued the business, with the much needed financial backing of
William Agnew and his brother Thomas. ==See also==