A Parliamentary Fancy-Dress Fete. - an original printed appearance of this cartoon featuring Winston S. Churchill from the Punch's Almanack for 1909

London: Punch, 1909. 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 "A Parliamentary Fancy-Dress Fete" appeared thus in the Punch's Almanack for 1909. The artist is Edward Tennyson Reed. The cartoon is captioned
"'Mr. Austen Chamberlain: 'Come on in, Arthur, the confederates will show you around:' Mr. Balfour, Mr. Harold Cox, Mr. Asquith: 'By Jove, Cox, I envy you that tub! What Freedom!' Mr. Chaplin: 'Don't you go and touch it with that wand of yours, Arthur, and turn it into something else.' Lord Robert Cecil: 'Really, Haldane looks too Bohemian for anything - smoking too!' Mr. Harcourt: 'What a happy inspiration, My dear Sam, your head was just made for a wreath!!' Mr. Haldane: 'gesundheit Brer Robert' Mr. Winston Churchill: '?!!' Mr. George Wyndham: 'Mon Geordie yon Edinburry University Fellows have a muchly fine taste in Lorrd Rectorrs!'"

These are all pairs of prominent members of Parliament who had recent interactions with one beating the other in some race or endeavor. Churchill is paired with George Wyndham, with whom Churchill had recently competed - along with William Osler, Regis Professor of Medicine at Oxford - for the position of Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. The final vote was Wyndham 826, Churchill 727, and Osler 614. Here Wyndham is in his Scottish Academic Regalia and WSC is just harrumphing. The Alma Mater, rectorial magazine of the University's Liberal Association, published a cartoon of Churchill as a knight about to slay the two-headed dragon (Wyndham and Osler).

As a young man, the Harrow-educated cartoonist and caricaturist Edward Tennyson Reed (1860-1933) “spent time at the House of Commons sketching politicians in action.” In March 1890 he became a permanent member of the staff of Punch and by 1894 became the illustrator of Punch’s parliamentary pages, a post he held for eighteen years. As this cartoon of Churchill testifies, Reed “had a deft hand at sketching facial attributes amidst often absurd scenes.”(NPG) Reed was popular, not only as a cartoonist, but also as an after-dinner speaker and lecturer. His drawings were published in collections, displayed at exhibitions, and even purchased by King George V. In 1912, Reed left the staff of Punch and subsequently also drew for The Bystander, the Passing Show, the Sunday Times, Pall Mall Gazette, Sunday Evening Telegraph, and the Evening Standard. (ODNB)

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.