John
Doyle was born into an impoverished Roman Catholic family in Dublin
in 1797. Doyle arrived in London in 1821 where he hoped to establish
himself as a portrait painter. Although he occasionally exhibited
at the Royal Academy he failed to sell
enough pictures and by 1827 had turned to lithography.
Over the next few years he revolutionized the art of caricature and
his work differed greatly from previous cartoonists such as Thomas
Rowlandson and James Gillray who attempted
to make their subjects look ugly and ridiculous. John Doyle concentrated
on politicians, and although he favoured the Whigs,
mainly because of their views on Catholic
Emancipation, he was never too harsh on the Tories.
Doyle's pictures appeared in The Times
between 1829 and 1851. His drawings were always signed H.B. and at
the time very few people knew his real name. Doyle's cartoons were
daily commentaries of political events and were sometimes accompanied
by an article explaining their meaning. John Doyle died on 2nd January
1868. One of his sons, Richard Doyle, was
also a cartoonist. His other son, Charles, was the father of the writer,
Arthur Conan Doyle.
John
Doyle, A Modest Request, shows Earl
Grey discussing the
1832 Reform Act with with the Duke
of Wellington.
The drawing appeared in The Times
on 23rd March, 1832.
(1)
William Makepeace Thackeray, writing in 1840.
You never hear any laughing at H.B., his pictures are a great deal
too genteel for that - polite points of wit, which strike one as exceedingly
clever and pretty, and cause one to smile in a quiet, gentlemanlike
kind of way.
(2) Earl Grey collected John Doyle's drawings.
Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote in July
1831 visiting 10 Downing Street while Grey was at the House of Lords.
I
sat down and turned over two large portfolios of political caricatures.
Earl Grey's face was in every print. I was very much diverted. I had
seen some of them before; but many were new to me and their merit
is extraordinary. They were the caricatures of that remarkable artist
who calls himself H.B.
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