The perfect subject

Tim Benson, Churchill: A Life in Cartoons (London: Hutchinson Heinemann, 2024), 224 pages, Amazon $32.99, Kindle $14.99.

Tim Benson, of London’s Political Cartoon Gallery and Café, now turns his attention to a figure cartoonists loved to praise, ridicule and lampoon. Sometimes Churchill received all those treatments at once—notably by the great David Low. In 1954 Low penned a magnificent tribute showing the eighty-year-old Prime Minister being congratulated by all his previous incarnations. The caption was sincere: “To Winston, from his old friend and castigator, Low.”

Significantly, Churchill never resented the negative attention. His daughter Mary told Mr. Benson that in her youth she was “mystified” by what she deemed cruel and callous drawings of her father hanging around Chartwell. Indeed, he often bought and framed some.

Praising Low in his essay “Cartoons and Cartoonists,” Churchill asserted that politicians feared neglect more than ridicule. They were “offended and downcast” when the cartoons stopped: “We are not mauled and maltreated as we used to be. The great days are ended.”

Churchill was irresistible to scribblers. His many characteristics and “props” were gifts to them: the stooped posture, tiny hats and balding locks of the young MP; the spotted bow tie, siren suit, cigar and V-sign of the seasoned statesman. All that, and his political prominence, made Churchill a central cartoon character for half a century.

A wartime chronicle

Given the vast Churchill cartoon universe, Tim Benson concentrated on greatest events. Thus the division into nine sections: “1914-20” covers the Great War and its aftermath; “1931-39” is entirely devoted to Appeasement and rearmament. The Second World War occupies six sections, 1940-45; and there is a brief postwar coda.

The book skips the young war correspondent and Conservative-turned-Liberal, who provided much grist for early cartoonists. Nor do we glimpse the Colonial Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer cartoonists lampooned in the 1920s. What we do get is a cartoon account of the years of Churchill’s greatest impact. Here Tim Benson is in his depth, providing many drawings few readers will have seen.

With the exception of the omitted periods, this is as comprehensive a reference as one could imagine. Early in the Great War, Churchill is pictured alongside an English bulldog. As First Lord of the Admiralty in Nelsonian garb, he hurls defiance at the Germans—who hurl it back. (Lüstige Blatter, the German humor magazine that mocked him in the Second World War, was already targeting him in the First.)

The Benson collection

The depth of this book can only be appreciated by owning a copy. Despite the cost (more on that later), no Churchillian should be without it. It is a kaleidoscope of WSC’s life and times.

For instance, I wrote of Churchill’s friend Hilaire Belloc, who toasted WSC’s departure from the government to fight in Flanders in 1915: “They drank Winston’s health and sang the French children’s song ‘Malbrouck s’en vat’en guerre’ (Marlborough goes off to war). They congratulated Churchill for “breaking loose from his official bondage to the gang of incapables….”

What fun to be reminded of Belloc’s tribute by the great cartoonist Edward Tennyson Reed, on page 18! Deftly, Benson accompanies the drawing with Churchill’s remarks after his first twelve days in the trenches: “I always get on with soldiers…. Do you know I am quite young again?”

Finest hours

A Life in Cartoons devotes itself mainly to the Second World War. The uplifting spirit of British cartoonists in the black days of 1940-41 is at once evident. A glow of resolve swept Britain; there were no carping media midgets such as we hear from today. That was a time, as Churchill put it, “when it was equally good to live or die.” Benson’s coverage invokes the spirit of thorse hard, glorious times.

Enemy cartoonists feature prominently. Early in 1940, the Daily Worker trumpets Churchill leading the poor little neutrals into war. Benson balances this with Leslie Illingworth’s drawing of a Nazi crocodile sprawled across Europe. Underneath it is Churchill’s quip: “Each [neutral] hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.”

The pace picks up as Hitler invades Russia. Now German cartoonists wonder whether Stalin or Churchill will betray the other first. But the alliance holds. The Daily Sketch pictures Roosevelt leading a sailing race in a boat marked “Lend-Lease.” Melbourne’s Herald adds a dose of Aussie humor: Tojo being fed a cigar (lit end first), and wrestler Churchill putting a toe-hold on a screaming Mussolini.

Soon after Russia is invaded, the enemy-become-ally protests the lack of a “Second Front.” Pravda’s Boris Efimov regularly ridiculed Churchill’s “stalling,” Benson notes. As D-Day approaches, the Daily Sketch shows southern England bristling with tanks, guns, Americans, and a cigar-equipped figure saying: “First of all, gentlemen, welcome to our right little, tight little island.”

Depth and erudition

The array of rarely- or never-seen cartoons shows that this book could only be assembled by someone with a vast reach for material. For instance, Benson relies on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (where else?) for Hal Coffman’s wry drawing of May 1940, when Churchill replaced Chamberlain. As Neville bails out of the government aircraft, Winston quips: “I always did wonder why you carried that umbrella.”

It is important also to note Benson’s narrative richness. He carefully explains the meaning of each cartoon, which today can be obscure. A typical example is “The Obstruction” by Jimmy Friell, in a 1944 edition of the Daily Worker: The Curzon Line being blocked by a soldier representing the exiled Warsaw government. Poland, Benson explains, objected to having its borders shifted. This high-quality research adds a vital dimension rarely found in art books.

An indispensable work

A small bone to pick has nothing to do with the author’s work. The cramped, horizontal, 8×7-inch format is disappointing in such a work. Yet the small pages contain a vast amount of white space that could have housed larger type and images. Many cartoons are too small to be fully appreciated without a magnifying glass.

Such a volume deserves a larger format and the option of a hardback, since it is not likely to gather dust. Readers will repeatedly pull it out for reference, and hardbacks hold up better.

The author’s erudition and vast resources deserved more from his publishers, who, though distinguished, do him a disservice. (I remember Heinemann, thirty years ago, refusing a minimal commitment to continue the companion volumes of the official biography. Martin Gilbert’s supporters went cap in hand to an old friend of Sir Winston for a donation that produced three more. Ultimately and thankfully, Hillsdale College took over and finished the job.)

Tim Benson (full disclosure) is an old friend who has aided this writer countless times over the years. Knowing in advance of his expertise, I expected the high quality of his work. Perusing the book is a never-ending revelation, and it quickly grows on you. A Life in Cartoons deserves a place in every serious Churchill library.

More on cartoons and cartoonists

“‘The Charlie Chaplin of Caricature’: Churchill on David Low,” 2020.

“Poy (Percy Fearon): The Classic Churchill Cartoonist,” 2022.

“Echoes and Memories: Foreword to Gary Stiles’s Churchill in Punch,” 2022.

“In Search of Winston Churchill’s First Political Cartoon,” 2021.

William John Shepherd, “Gary Stiles Offers a Brilliant Catalogue of Mr. Punch’s Churchill,” 2022.

“Fieldfare’s” Poy (Percy Fearon)

An enquiry from cartoon historian Tim Benson sent us to the library for Poy’s Churchill, by “Fieldfare” (1954). Tim runs the Political Cartoon Gallery, which exhibits and trades in original drawings. Many are from the great blossoming of British cartoons in the first half of the 20th century. 

Among the most prominent was “Poy” (Percy Hutton Fearon, 1874-1948), who grew up on Staten Island, New York. His pseudonym derived from the American pronunciation of his first name (“Poycee”), which he abbreviated “Poy.”  In Britain he joined London’s Evening News in 1913. He also worked for the Daily Mail. Poy created over 10,000 cartoons in 34 years. He was retired when war came in 1939—regretting that he could not contribute to wartime cartooning. 

To mark Churchill’s 80th birthday in 1954, Percy Fearon’s nephew Henry published Poy’s Churchill in tribute to them both. Henry was also an Evening News hand, famous for his column on country walks, published under the pseudonym “Fieldfare.” His booklet is an eloquent charmer, featuring 50 of his uncle’s best cartoons. 

Poy’s Churchill  

“In this little book two great men are brought together,” writes “Fieldfare”:  “In a sense, Poy is Churchill’s earliest and most constant biographer, and it is through his clear, cool, twinkling eyes that we watch here the long and active life of his subject.” 

Fieldfare begins with the reign of King Edward VII (1901-10). No monarchy since the Norman Conquest, he wrote, compared with it. Fieldfare acknowledges the appalling poverty, crime, squalor and disease that also accompanied those years. Nevertheless, he sees “something of its magic,” and “the never equaled figures which it magically produced in every sphere of life, especially in politics.”

There is much of Churchill in those words, for the Edwardian era had scarcely ended when the First World War changed everything. Joining the Cabinet at age 34, Churchill commanded attention. He was, of course, a Victorian (born the same year as Poy). But “Thank God, every vestige of Victorianism was washed away in the ice-cool shining waters of Edwardian England.” Poy interpreted Churchill’s political life, his triumphs and foibles, from the catastrophe of one world war almost to the start of another. 

“A modern Aesop” 

Poy had no swords to rattle, no power of invective, no command of oratory; his weapon was a simple one of ridicule, and he could wield it with unerring skill…. Caricature was the object of all Poy’s work, but he never dipped his pen in vitriol…. He was not unlike a modern Aesop who…drew the simple truth with devastating clearness. Looking at any of his pictures you laugh because of their very rightness. It is only afterwards that you realise the brilliance of the drawing, and are staggered by the genius that created it.

Fieldfare says Poy led cartoonists away from “cruel lampoons” to “sane commentary….

This did not mean that he lost anything of the robustness of satire…but simply that he never made a single enemy. On the contrary, was loved by all who knew him. He could bring home his point, administer his rebuke, without ever resorting to personalities. Poy never lampooned physical defects:  

Through Poy’s eyes we look upon [Churchill’s] whole career, all the vagaries and uncertainness of politics, until at last he becomes Prime Minister…. Alas for all of  us, Poy retired in 1938 and was, therefore, unable to round off his history… showing the greatest statesman of the age at the zenith.

“Destiny took her time in claiming him…”  

According to his nephew, Poy initially pictured young Winston as a chap thoroughly pleased with himself:  

He is neatly, if carelessly, dressed [and] carries himself with a slight stoop, holding the lapels of his coat in the correct politician’s manner. He is not a little proud of the reddish curl on his head, and he is inclined to speak down to his audience…. Soon we see a subtle change: the plums of office are waiting to be plucked!…. Poy looks on amused at all the political jockeying and reduces it to terms which we can all understand. 

At the Admiralty, Churchill moved from domestic to international affairs and, in time, the First World War. Poy now showed him as “a Man of Destiny, yet a man of excellent good humour withal.” Destiny took her time in claiming him, Fieldfare writes, but that wasn’t Poy’s fault. 

Poy may have been the first cartoonist to make fun of Churchill’s tiny hats. Churchill claimed this started in 1910, when he donned a felt cap several sizes too small, and photos were taken. (See Gary Stiles, “Churchill in “Punch.”)

Poy himself denied this: “I had noticed the smallness of his hats long before 1910, but at that time the salient feature of my caricatures was the curl on the top of his head. It was only when this vanished prematurely that I turned to the hat, and made it the new hallmark.” 

1921: “He who laughs lasts” 

In early 1921, Churchill left for the Middle East Conference at Cairo amidst “halcyon calm” in Parliament. No sooner had was he gone than there came an upheaval. The ailing Andrew Bonar Law resigned as Leader of the House of Commons, an inviting position. To the amusement of political London, Poy lampooned Churchill for missing all the fun. Churchill wrote: 

I had taken my paint-box to Cairo, and while the Conference was working under my guidance I made some lovely pictures of the Pyramids. Of course, I was neglected in all the rearrangements which took place in London. Lord Northcliffe was delighted with this cartoon. He sent me the original. He was particularly pleased with the little Arab news-vendor…roared with merriment as he pointed its beauties out to me. I accepted the gift with a stock grin. Of course, it was only a joke, but there was quite enough truth in it for it to be more funny to others than to oneself!

In 1924, to Churchill’s delighted surprise, newly elected Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin asked him to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was an exalted position, one his father had once held. “Poy,” wrote Fieldfare, “now showed him putting on a hat which really fitted him!”

Poy at his best 

In early 1927, Chancellor Churchill was preparing his third budget for delivery to the House of Commons in April. March 19th presented Poy with a rare opportunity. It happened to coincide with the bicentenary of Isaac Newton. Here was a chance for Poy to apply what his nephew called his “topical flair”….  

On the very eve of the anniversary, his cartoon showed us a wondering John Citizen, sitting beneath the famous apple tree, while an enormous “Budget” apple in the shape of Winston’s head is about to fall heavily upon him! By any measure, and at any time, this would be an outstandingly brilliant cartoon, but here its topicality lifted it into the spheres of immortality.

“The real apotheosis” 

The general election of 1929 ended Baldwin’s first government and Churchill’s tenure at the Treasury. He would now spend a decade out of office, with accompanying loss of cartoonist attention. And he missed it: 

Just as eels are supposed to get used to skinning, so politicians get used to being caricatured. In fact, by a strange trait in human nature, they even get to like it. If we must confess it, they are quite offended and downcast when the cartoons stop. They wonder what has gone wrong, they wonder what they have done amiss, [fearing] old age and obsolescence are creeping upon them. They murmur: “We are not mauled and maltreated as we used to be. The great days are ended.”

Of course as we know, the great days were yet to come. Poy had drawn “The Apotheosis of Winston” in 1911, his nephew wrote, “but he lived to see the real apotheosis in the terrible days of the Hitler conflict.” And there was that final drawing, “Accent on the WIN,” which summed up the story.  

Hail and farewell 

Today, when even Churchill’s minor gaffes are magnified out of proportion by the ill-read and the ignorant, his reputation broadly survives. Fieldfare’s eloquent conclusion to Poy’s Churchill is therefore worth repeating: 

The petty jealousies which had clouded the early years, the political squabbles, the many mistakes and misunderstandings of a long life in the House of Commons are all forgotten now by the ordinary man in the street—the little man who was called John Citizen by Poy. Few recall the burning days of Home Rule: few, indeed, can remember John Redmond standing like a colossus over Asquith, Lloyd George, and the young Churchill. But Poy, in his last days, must often have hearkened back in his mind to these distant years, and he must, I think, have been fully conscious of his own contribution to history—recording for all future generations a picture of our times, and of its greatest figure, unequalled by any other man.

Further reading

“In Search of Churchill’s First Political Cartoon,” 2021

Gary Stiles, “Churchill in ‘Punch’: His Fanciful Hats Helped Fashion His Image,” 2022