ELECTION MACHINE - an original printed appearance of this cartoon featuring then-Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill in the 11 November 1953 edition of the magazine Punch, or The London Charivari

London: Punch, 1953. This original printed appearance of a Punch cartoon featuring Winston S. Churchill comes from the personal collection of Gary L. Stiles, author of Churchill in Punch (Unicorn Publishing Group, 2022). His book is the first ever effort to definitively catalog, describe, and contextualize all of the many Punch cartoons featuring Churchill.

This cartoon titled "ELECTION MACHINE" appeared thus on p.585 of the 11 November 1953 issue of Punch. The cartoon is captioned "Quarrelsome, costly, tumult-making machine (Churchill patent)." The artist is Michael Cummings (1919-1997), who worked for Punch for more than 30 years.

After being Leader of the Opposition since July 1945, Churchill finally returned to the premiership in October 1951 at nearly 77 years old. And as his premiership progressed and his infirmities became manifest, pressure mounted for him to relinquish his leadership. When this cartoon was published, Churchill, just weeks away from his 79th birthday, declared in the House that he thought a General Election was two years off, but hoped for better cooperation between the Government and the Opposition. He was not suggesting a coalition and commented "That would be carrying goodwill too far." The cartoonist's elaborate "ELECTION MACHINE" has a variety of characters and features, all run - a la Wizard of Oz - from behind the scenes by a series of levers and switches controlled by Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and Leader of the Opposition Clement Attlee. Note the differences in sizes of the characters. Churchill controls four "Big Shots" - Eden, Butler, Crookshank, and Woolton. Attlee's own "Big Shots" are Bevan, Morrison, Griffiths, and Dalton ("muffled").

Punch or The London Charivari began featuring Churchill cartoons in 1900, when his political career was just beginning. That political career would last two thirds of a century, see him occupy Cabinet office during each of the first six decades of the twentieth century, carry him twice to the premiership and, further still, into the annals of history as a preeminent statesman. And throughout that time, Punch satirized Churchill in cartoons – more than 600 of them, the work of more than 50 different artists.

It was a near-perfect relationship between satirists and subject. That Churchill was distinctive in both persona and physical appearance helped make him easy to caricature. To his persona and appearance he added myriad additional satirical temptations, not just props, like his cigars, siren suits, V-sign, and hats, but also a variety of ancillary avocations and vocations, like polo, painting, brick-laying, and writing. All these were skewered as well.

Some Punch cartoons were laudatory, some critical, and many humorous, like the man himself. Nearly always, Churchill was distinctly recognizable, a larger-than-life character whose presence caricature served only to magnify.