Businessman. The son of a Manchester publican, he was apprenticed to a joiner. Self-educated, he moved to London in 1836 where he became involved in the Temperance Movement. In 1847 he established himself as a tea and coffee merchant and soon afterwards started a publishing buisness with the aim of providing good literature to the working classes. The firm, which in 1859 became Messrs Cassell, Petter, Galpin and Company, issued the “Popular Educator” (1852 to 1855), the “Technical Educator” (1870 to 1872), the “Magazine of Art” (1878 to 1903) and “Cassell’s Magazine” (from 1852). A special feature of their popular books was the illustrations and, at a time of the Crimean War, he procured from Paris the cuts used by “L’Illustration”, and by printing them in his “Family Paper” (begun in 1853) secured a large circulation for it. The firm became Cassell and Company in 1883. (bio by: s.canning)