Sommerville. "The Great British Gum Secret" [V, 202–03. May 15, 1852] relates the discovery of the process of making adhesive paste and the subsequent commercial manufacture of such paste. The introductory paragraphs of the article, referring to the adhesive on postage stamps and connecting the article with "The Queen's Head" (Feb. 21, 1852), are evidently an editorial addition. Payment for the contribution recorded as "Advanced by W.H.W."

      The contributor may perhaps be Alexander Somerville, 1811–1885, social reformer (D.N.B.). Somerville wrote for periodicals; in the 1840S he was correspondent for the Manchester Examiner; he was author of The Autobiography of a Working Man, 1848, with which Dickens was familiar; of The Whistler at the Plough, 1852; and of other works.
      On Sept. 20, 1855, Dickens wrote Wills a letter (MS Huntington Library) to accompany certain papers that were to receive Wills's attention. The paper that he marked No. 1. (apparently a letter), Dickens stated, "relates to the Whistler at the Plough, I have no objection to making him any small advance you think right, if your knowledge of what has taken place between you interposes no bar." In context, Dickens's comment seems clearly to indicate that the "small advance" had no connection with a H.W. article. (Grubb, "Dickens the Paymaster Once More," Dickensian, Spring 1955, assumes that the "small advance" was for a H.W. article. But no article published in H.W. during the last four months of 1855 can have been Somerville's writing; no articles published during these months are unassigned in the Office Book, and none seems misassigned.) However, in view of Somerville's correspondence with Dickens and in view of his having at some time had some conference with Wills, it is possible that the 1852 article assigned to "Sommerville" may be by Alexander Somerville.
      Harper's reprinted the article, without acknowledgment to H.W.

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971