The Children's Friend was a British journal for children, in monthly parts, first published in 1824. It was founded by Rev. William Carus Wilson (1791–1859), who was based near Kirkby Lonsdale where the journal was initially printed. Carus Wilson is perhaps best known for being portrayed negatively as Mr Brocklehurst in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847). William Carus Wilson's rationale for embarking on the publication of the journal was expressed to his young readers in the first edition: The price was still one penny in the 1860s, and it had sixteen pages.