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Punch’s portrayal of Redmond, Carson and the Irish question, 1910–18

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Joseph P. Finnan
Joseph P. Finnan*
Affiliation:
History Department, State University of New York at Oswego
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Extract

The Irish question in the form of home rule reasserted itself in British politics during the years 1910-18, first as the central issue in British political debate, then as a secondary, though still significant, concern for Britain during the First World War. One of Britain’s national institutions, Punch, a weekly magazine of political commentary and satire with a circulation of 100,000, reflected the significance of the Irish question by devoting a great deal of attention during these years to the leaders of the two opposing forces in Irish politics, the Irish nationalist leader John Redmond and the Irish unionist leader Sir Edward Carson. Redmond and Carson became regular members of Punch’s leading cast of characters in its political cartoons in the 1910s, a group which included the Liberal premier H. H. Asquith, his leading ministers David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, and the opposition leader Andrew Bonar Law.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 132 , November 2003 , pp. 424 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2003

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References

1 Douglas, Roy, Harte, Liam and O’Hara, Jim, Drawing conclusions: a cartoon history of Anglo-Irish relations, 1798-1998 (Belfast, 1998), p. 1.Google Scholar

2 Mellini, Peter, ‘Punch’ in Leventhal, F. M. (ed.), Twentieth-century Britain: an encyclopedia (New York, 1995), p. 665Google Scholar; Prager, Arthur, The mahogany tree: an informal history of ‘Punch’ (New York, 1979), p. 164Google Scholar; Price, R. G. G., A history of ‘Punch’ (London, 1957), pp 178, 183.Google Scholar

3 Price, History of ‘Punch’, p. 186.

4 Douglas, Harte & O’Hara, Drawing conclusions, pp 4, 165; Price, History of ‘Punch’, pp 156, 168, 216-17. Price noted that ‘Art under Seaman … until just after the war meant art under Townshend’ (ibid., p. 162). He also quoted a Bernard Partridge letter from 1939, which stated that ‘The subject matter [of a cartoon] is not often of my own conceiving … so that I feel I am little more than a hack draughtsman’ (ibid., p. 205).

5 McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book: British election results, 1832-1918 (8th ed., Brighton, 1971), p. 273.

6 Punch, 2 Feb. 1910, pp 77, 83.

7 Ibid., 12 Jan. l910, p. 29.

8 Altick, R. D., ‘Punch’: the lively youth of a British institution, 1841-1851 (Columbus, Ohio, 1997), pp xvii, 380Google Scholar; Foster, R. F., Paddy and Mr Punch: connections in Irish and English history (London, 1993), pp 171-2, 191-3.Google Scholar

9 Punch, 12 Oct. 1910, p. 255. Roy Foster observes that Punch had earlier portrayed Parnell in similar ‘Paddy attire’ (Paddy & Mr Punch, p. 185).

10 For examples of these portrayals of Redmond see Daily Graphic, 29 Nov. 1913; Pall Mall Gazette, 2 Feb. 1914; Westminster Gazette, 16 Feb. 1914; and Reynolds’s Newspaper, 22 Feb. 1914. Other examples can be found in Douglas, Harte & O’Hara, Drawing conclusions.

11 Stewart, A. T. Q., Edward Carson (Dublin, 1981), pp 47–53Google Scholar; Jackson, Alvin, Sir Edward Carson (Dundalk, 1993), pp 12–16Google Scholar; Punch, 13 Apr. 1910, p. 266; 1 Nov. 1911, p. 319.

12 Grady, Richard Joseph, ‘John Redmond (1856-1918) and the Irish political system, 1900-1910’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1994), pp 738-9Google Scholar; Punch, 12 Jan. 1910, p. 29; 5 Oct. 1910, p. 247.

13 Curtis, L. P. jr, Apes and angels: the Irishman in Victorian caricature (rev. ed., Washington, D.C., 1997), pp 29, 57Google Scholar; Punch, 16 Aug. 1911, p. 109.

14 McCaffrey, L. J., The Irish question: two centuries of conflict (2nd ed., Lexington, Ky., 1995), pp 99–101, 122-3Google Scholar; Jalland, Patricia, The Liberals and Ireland: the Ulster question in British politics to 1914 (Brighton, 1980), p. 115Google Scholar; Jackson, Carson, pp 23,25,27.

15 Hansard 5 (Commons), xxxvi, 1440 (11 Apr. 1912); Punch, 16 Mar. 1910, p. 193.

16 Punch,l Mar. l911,p. l57.

17 Ibid., 5 Apr. 1911, p. 245.

18 Stewart, Carson, p. 73; Punch, 4 Oct. 1911, p. 235.

19 Hansard 5 (Commons), xxxvi, 1440 (11 Apr. 1912).

20 Gwynn, Denis, The life of John Redmond (London, 1932), p. 220Google Scholar; Freeman’s Journal, 29 June, 5 Aug. 1912; Walker, Brian (ed.), Parliamentary election results in Ireland, 1800-1922 (Dublin, 1978), p. 183.Google Scholar

21 Jalland, Liberals & Ireland, p. 94.

22 Punch, 17 Apr. 1912, p. 293.

23 Ibid., 8 Oct. 1913, p. 299.

24 Jalland, Liberals & Ireland, pp 122-3.

25 McCalmont’s, pp 76,84-91.

26 Punch, l May 19l2, p. 331.

27 Dangerfield, George, The strange death of Liberal England (New York, 1961 ed.), pp 76-7.Google Scholar

28 Punch, 22 May 1912, p. 393.

29 Ibid., 17 Jan. 1912, p. 51.

30 Ibid., 25 Sept. 1912, p. 247; Buckland, Patrick (ed.), Irish unionism, 1885-1923: a documentary history (Belfast, 1973), p. 224Google Scholar; Stewart, Carson, p. 78. The authors of Drawing conclusions saw this image of Carson ‘in a pose reminiscent of paintings of King William of Orange at the Boyne in 1690’. Given William’s heroic status in the Ulster unionist tradition, this is one possible interpretation, but the similarities between Raven Hill’s cartoon and David’s rendering of Napoleon crossing the Alps is very strong. Punch’s recurring Napoleonic theme during this period lends further support to this interpretation. Reed’s cartoon had shown Redmond as Napoleon, and Partridge had depicted a meeting between Field-Marshals Wellington ( Asquith) and Blücher (Redmond) entitled ‘La Belle Alliance’, a play on the name of the meeting-place of the British and Prussian victors at Waterloo and on the ‘beautiful alliance’ of Liberals and Irish Nationalists. See Douglas, Harte & O’Hara, Drawing conclusions, p. 162; Punch, 1 Feb. 1911, p. 83.

31 Punch, 17 July 1912, pp 60-61.

32 Ibid., 2 July 1913, p. 1; Stewart, Carson, p. 78.

33 Punch, 2 July 1913, pp 20-21. The Marconi scandal involved the suspicion that prominent Liberal cabinet members, including Lloyd George, Attorney General Rufus Isaacs, and Postmaster General Herbert Samuel, had profited from stock purchases in the American Marconi Company at the same time as the British government had signed a contract with Marconi’s English parent company to establish a series of wireless stations throughout the Empire. A well-publicised investigation in 1913 cleared the ministers of wrongdoing, but the scandal hurt Liberal Party morale and undermined popular confidence in the government. See Jalland, Liberals & Ireland, p. 122; Stewart, Carson, p. 81.

34 Freeman’s Journal, 29 Sept. 1913; Punch, 8 Oct. 1913, p. 309; Jalland, Liberals & Ireland, p. 156.

35 Punch, 24 Jan. 1912, p. 65; 17 Dec. 1913, p. 509.

36 Ibid., 23 Oct. 1913, p. 327; 13 Aug. 1913, p. 153; 18 Mar. 1914, p. 213; 15 Apr. 1914, p. 293.

37 Ibid.,15 0ct.l913,p.321.

38 Ibid., 18 Mar. 1914, p. 211; Gue Trapier, Elizabeth du, Velázquez (New York, 1948), p. 354Google Scholar. Velázquez’s painting had recently been slashed and badly damaged in the National Gallery, London, by a militant member of the women’s suffrage movement — hence Bonar Law’s hatchet and Mr Punch’s comment.

39 Punch,l Apr. l914, p. 251.

40 Ibid., 6 May 1914, p. 351; Denis Gwynn, Life of Redmond, pp 316-18.

41 Punch, 10 June 1914, p. 451.

42 Ibid., 24 June 1914, pp 497-8.

43 Ibid., title-page.

44 Ibid., 22 July 1914, p. 91.

45 Denis Gwynn, Life of Redmond, pp 356-60; Stewart, Carson, p. 94; Punch, 12 Aug. 1914, p. 154.

46 Punch, 3 May 1916, p. 297.

47 Ibid., 24 May l916, p. 345.

48 Ibid., 2 Aug. 1916, p. 93. A similar negative change in Punch’s attitude towards the Irish occurred in the 1840s. Foster notes that ‘As Young Ireland became more Anglophobic and irreconcilable … Punch lost all patience. The open endorsement of violent tactics by the Young Ireland leaders was the final straw’ (Paddy & Mr Punch, p. 176).

49 Lloyd George to Dillon, 10 June 1916 (T.C.D., Dillon papers, MS 6796); Redmond confidential memo, 22 Jan. 1917 (N.L.I., Redmond papers, MS 15189).

50 Punch, 11 Oct. 1916, p. 269; 14 Mar. 1917, p. 172; 30 May 1917, pp 353-4; Hansard 5 (Commons), xci, 459, 481 (7 Mar. 1917).

51 Punch, 31 Oct. 1917, p. 304.

52 Ibid., 31 July 1918, p. 74; 20 Nov. 1918, p. 318.

53 Ibid., 13 Nov. 1918, p. 318.

54 Gailey, Andrew, ‘King Carson: an essay on the invention of leadership’ in I.H.S., xxx, no. 117 (May 1996), p. 69.Google Scholar