Job Trotter by J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") for the 1910 watercolour series: reproduced on John Player cigarette card no. 15: Ninety-two Characters from Dickens: The Pickwick Papers. 2 ½ inches high by 1 ¼ inches wide (6.3 cm high by 3.3 cm wide). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
JOB TROTTER (The Pickwick Papers)
The sanctimonious, hypocritical servant of Mr. Jingle, and partner and participator in all his nefarious schemes. Carries a small hymn-book (number four collection), and and is much given to tears, which he sheds with a facility simply sufficient to justify Sam Weller's suspicion that "he has a main in his head as is always turned on." [Verso of Card No. 15]
Passage Illustrated: Sam Weller and Readers First Encounter Sanctimonious Job Trotter
Early on the ensuing morning, Mr. Weller was dispelling all the feverish remains of the previous evening's conviviality, through the instrumentality of a halfpenny shower-bath (having induced a young gentleman attached to the stable department, by the offer of that coin, to pump over his head and face, until he was perfectly restored), when he was attracted by the appearance of a young fellow in mulberry-coloured livery, who was sitting on a bench in the yard, reading what appeared to be a hymn-book, with an air of deep abstraction, but who occasionally stole a glance at the individual under the pump, as if he took some interest in his proceedings, nevertheless.
"You're a rum 'un to look at, you are!" thought Mr. Weller, the first time his eyes encountered the glance of the stranger in the mulberry suit, who had a large, sallow, ugly face, very sunken eyes, and a gigantic head, from which depended a quantity of lank black hair. "You're a rum 'un!" thought Mr. Weller; and thinking this, he went on washing himself, and thought no more about him.
Still the man kept glancing from his hymn-book to Sam, and from Sam to his hymn-book, as if he wanted to open a conversation. So at last, Sam, by way of giving him an opportunity, said with a familiar nod —
"How are you, governor?"
"I am happy to say, I am pretty well, Sir," said the man, speaking with great deliberation, and closing the book. "I hope you are the same, Sir?"
"Why, if I felt less like a walking brandy-bottle I shouldn't be quite so staggery this mornin'," replied Sam. "Are you stoppin' in this house, old 'un?"
The mulberry man replied in the affirmative. [Household Edition, Chapter XVI, “Too Full of Adventure to be Briefly Described,” 107]
Commentary: Job Trotter, The Sanctimonious Foil to the Oily Alfred Jingle
The only clue that Kyd provides as to the scene realised is Job Trotter's carrying a handkerchief and a hymn-book; these properties suggest that Kyd has chosen the moment when Sam Weller first encounters Jingle's morose servant in the mulberry suit, reading (apparently) a hymn-book. Later, we encounter Trotter as he is bringing his master dinner in the common cell of the Fleet Prison, whose latest inmate is Samuel Pickwick, incarcerated after the celebrated breach-of-promise trial. Kyd's portrait is consistent with Phiz's depictions of this lachrymose hypocrite in mulberry-coloured servant's livery in the Household Edition, Chapter XVI, and in the July 1837 serial plate The Discovery of Jingle in the Fleet (Chapter XLII). Kyd's portrait of Jingle, however, in Card No. 8 is much more lively, but also more consistent with his appearances in earlier illustrated editions as a self-assured, loquacious confidence man.
Phiz's 1836 and 1874 Images of Job Trotter, Entering Mr. Muzzle's Kitchen
Left: Phiz's Job Trotter encounters Sam in Mr. Muzzle's kitchen. Right: Phiz's Household Edition version of the same scene: The kitchen door opened, and in walked Mr. Job Trotter (Chapter XXV). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Job Trotter: The British Household, Diamond, & Charles Dickens Library Editions
Left: Phiz's Household Edition introduction of Job Trotter: Mr. Weller was dispelling all the feverish remains of the previous evening's conviviality . . . when he was attracted by the appearance of a young fellow in mulberry-coloured livery, etc. for Chapter XVI (1874). Centre: Eytinge's Mr. Alfred Jingle. — Job Trotter for Chapter XVI (1867). Right: Harry Furniss carcicature of Job bringing a disconsolate Jingle his dinner: Jingle in the Fleet (Chapter LII, 1910).
Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910
- Robert Seymour (1836)
- Thomas Onwhyn (1837)
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1861)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. (1867)
- Thomas Nast (1873)
- Harry Furniss (1910)
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by “Kyd.” Lonodn, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, nd. [1910?]
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, R. W. Buss, and Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). London: Chapman & Hall: April 1836 through November 1837.
_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.
_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. 1.
_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 22 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 2.
_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 5.
_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 4.
_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.
Created 6January 2015
Last updated 10 July 2025