An impressively large volume containing 120 issues of an influential temperance journal, established to "promote the health, wealth and happiness of the working classes", as the first issue states. 
 
"The British Workman and Friend of the Sons of Toil was a lavishly illustrated, four page, penny, broadsheet publication, offering a miscellany of spiritually and morally uplifting pictures and short articles covering temperance, religion, thrift, kindness to animals, industry and peace. It was printed on high quality paper, noted for the superior quality of images and letterpress" (Murray).
 
Smithies, a prominent member of the Temperance Movement, used illustrations as a didactic tool and illustrated his journal with evocative work by such eminent artists as George Cruikshank and Sir John Gilbert.