The Illustrious Convalescent

Mavi Boncuk | 


Punch, or the London Charivari
July 20 1867


The Illustrious Convalescent
 Mr. Bull[1] "You a Sick man! Ha! Ha!-I knew my Crimean doctors would set you up, and this visit will do you all the good in the world."


John Bull, World War I recruiting poster, c. 1915


[1] John Bull is a national personification of Britain in general and England in particular, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country dwelling, jolly, matter-of-fact man.  John Bull originated in the creation of Dr John Arbuthnot in 1712, and was popularised first by British print makers. Arbuthnot created Bull in his pamphlet Law is a Bottomless Pit (1712)." 


Originally derided, William Hogarth and other British writers made Bull "a heroic archetype of the freeborn Englishman."[2] Later, the figure of Bull was disseminated overseas by illustrators and writers such as American cartoonist Thomas Nast and Irish writer George Bernard Shaw, author of John Bull's Other Island. Starting in the 1760s, Bull was portrayed as an Anglo-Saxon country dweller. He is almost always depicted in a buff-colored waistcoat and a simple frock coat (in the past Navy blue, but more recently with the Union Jack colors). Britannia, or a lion, is sometimes used as an alternative in some editorial cartoons.