John Cassell

[1] He was also a well-known tea and coffee merchant and a general business entrepreneur who supposedly sold and coined the term Cazeline which mutated into the word gasoline,[2] though dictionaries do not support this etymology.

He was a social reformer who recognised the importance of education in improving the life of the working class, and whose many publications, both magazines and books, brought learning and culture to the masses.

John received little education as a result and, from an early age, was required to work as a factory hand, manufacturing "tape"[clarification needed] and velveteen.

At the time, alcoholism was a pressing social issue; tea and coffee were prohibitively expensive for the working classes, milk was seen as a luxury, and beer, by contrast, was relatively cheap and readily available.

[7][8] In 1836, having spent several months lecturing on teetotalism in the Manchester area, Cassell set off by foot for London, stopping on the way to speak about temperance to any audience that he could find, and supporting himself by doing carpentry odd-jobs.

In October 1836, after 16 days of walking, he finally arrived in London with the princely sum of 3 pence in his pocket, unable even to afford lodgings for the night.

[9] In April 1837, Cassell was enrolled as a recognised agent of the "National Temperance Society", and toured around England and Wales, lecturing and taking total abstinence "pledges".

[13] In 1850, he started the Working Man's Friend,[14] a weekly magazine aiming to educate its readers without patronising them or playing to the lowest common denominator, and sympathetic to the life of working-class people.

Its readers sent in hundreds of letters and articles for publication, and the magazine drew praise from figures such as Richard Cobden, politician and social reformer, and the Earl of Carlisle.

The expansion of the company meant a move to bigger premises at "La Belle Sauvage Yard", previously the site of a centuries-old inn, on the north side of Ludgate Hill, in 1852.

He met the author Harriet Beecher Stowe and arranged for the publication of an illustrated edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin in Britain - to great success.

[26] The company's premises at La Belle Sauvage yard also gained the distinction of a visit from the French Emperor Napoleon III himself, as it was publishing the English edition of his book, The History of Julius Caesar.

[30] Cassell died, aged only 48, of an internal tumour, on 2 April 1865 at his home at 25 Avenue Road, Regent's Park, London; the same day as his friend Richard Cobden.