Mayhew, Henry (1812–1887)

English journalist, author, and documentary writer. He was founder and co-editor of Punch. His principal book was the pioneering study London Labour and the London Poor (1851–62) – a collection of hundreds of pen-portraits of the poor people of London, which were serialized in the Morning Chronicle. Mayhew's studies brought the extent of poverty to the attention of the middle classes, and helped to dispel the myth that the poor were responsible for their own poverty. He collaborated with his brother Augustus in The Good Genius (1847), The Plague of Life (1847), and The Image of his Father (1848).