Mark Bryant
This year marks not only the 50th anniversary of the official inauguration of the British Cartoon Archive (BCA) at the University of Kent, but also the centenary of the death of Sir Francis Carruthers Gould (1844-1925), the first staff political cartoonist to work for a daily newspaper in Britain, the first of his kind to be knighted, and the earliest artist to be represented in the BCA’s collection of some 200,000 British cartoons and caricatures dating from the late 19th Century to the present day.
Though sufficiently famous in 1890 to warrant a caricature in the “Men of the Day” series in the popular society magazine, Vanity Fair, Gould is perhaps not as well known in modern times as his fellow cartoonist knights--Max Beerbohm, Osbert Lancaster, David Low, and John Tenniel--despite that more than 130 drawings by him are held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London.
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Gould’s personal bookplate. The heads include Lord Salisbury and Joseph Chamberlain (who also appears as a monocled fox).
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Born in Barnstaple, Devon, the son of an architect, he began work in a local bank and, at the age of 18, moved to London, where he became a successful stockbroker. While working at the Stock Exchange, he drew caricatures of his colleagues and began to submit cartoons, caricatures, and illustrations to the popular weekly journal, Truth (1879-1895), including the large double-page color drawing, “The Kaiser’s Dream” (1890), seen by many to predict World War I. He also drew seven whole-page color caricatures for Vanity Fair (1879-1899).
In 1886, he began to contribute political cartoons freelance to London’s influential Liberal daily evening newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette (later absorbed by the Evening Standard). Then after Edward (later Sir Edward) Cook became its editor, he was invited to join the staff. As a result, in 1890, he left the Stock Exchange and became the first staff political cartoonist on a British daily newspaper. He drew cartoons five days a week and was very much a gentle satirist, never malicious in his work, and once said: “I etch with vinegar, not vitriol.”
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The cover drawing of the Earl of Rosebery (after David’s famous equestrian portrait of Napoleon) is from Harold Begbie’s Great Men (1901).
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In 1893, when the Gazette changed ownership (and turned Conservative), Gould moved to the newly launched Liberal daily evening paper, the Westminster Gazette, and was later appointed its assistant editor. He quickly became the leading daily political cartoonist in Fleet Street, and his work was syndicated nationwide to the Manchester Guardian and others. He continued to draw for the Westminster Gazette for the following 30 years, producing powerful satires during the Boer War and World War I. Four large hardback volumes of his drawings were published, as well as many smaller collections. In addition, he edited his own monthly journal, Picture Politics, which ran for 20 years.
As well as his newspaper work, Gould wrote and illustrated a number of books, notably Froissart’s Modern Chronicles (1902-1908), a three-volume series which featured real parliamentary figures engaged in imaginary wars between the Blues (Tories) and the Buffs (Liberals) in a pastiche of the famous medieval chronicles of French historian, Jean Froissart, and drawn in an appropriate “woodcut” style.
Gould also collaborated with others, including the journalist, Harold Begbie. Together, they produced The Political Struwwelpeter (1899) and The Struwwelpeter Alphabet (1900)--parodies of the classic German children’s book --and Great Men (1901). In addition, Gould illustrated The Westminster Alice (1902)--parodying both Lewis Carroll’s famous story and Tenniel’s original illustrations--with a text by a young H. H. Munro, later better known as the short-story writer “Saki.”
Gould retired in 1914 and moved to Porlock in Somerset, but continued to send political cartoons and illustrations to the Westminster Gazette until the end of 1923. He also designed a series of Toby-jug caricatures of “Prominent Personages of the Great War,” including U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, Allied Supreme Leader Marshal Foch, and British Prime Minister Lloyd George, which have become very collectible (the BCA has a complete set).
Sir Francis Carruthers Gould died at his home in Porlock on Jan. 1, 1925.
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Mark Bryant is a former trustee of the Cartoon Museum in London and a former research associate at the British Cartoon Archive, creating the original online biographical database of artists in its collection. He has written widely on the history of cartoons, caricature, and humorous art (including Dictionary of 20th Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists) and is the editor of a new book, The Picture Politics of Sir Francis Carruthers Gould: Britain’s Pioneering Political Cartoonist (Manchester University Press), published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the official inauguration of the British Cartoon Archive and the centenary of Gould’s death.
The British Cartoon Archive (University of Kent)
https://www.kent.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections/british-cartoon-archive
The Cartoon Museum (London)
https://www.cartoonmuseum.org/
The Picture Politics of Sir Francis Carruthers Gould (Manchester University Press)
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526181985/ - ebook. The print edition will appear in June 2026.
A version of this book notice will appear in print in IJOCA 27-1
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