John Bull's Family Arises
The colourful cartoon development of British national symbols provides an acute barometer to changes in 18th- and 19th-century public opinion. By Peter Mellini and Roy. T. Matthews.
Peter Mellini
Gabriel's Message
Political cartoonists are the sharpshooters of the artistic world; theirs is a skilled but risky profession. Peter Mellini draws a line on the marksman James 'Gabriel' Friell, whose career at the Daily Worker and Evening Standard spanned the crucial years of Depression, World War, Cold War and post-war recovery.
From Britannia to Maggie: The Fall and Rise of John Bull's Descendants
Roy T Matthews and Peter Mellini argue that the last 100 years have brought mixed fortunes for Britain’s family of national symbols.
Colonel Blimp's England
David Low, the cartoonist, met Horatio Blimp, a retired Colonel, in a Turkish bath near Charing Cross in the early 1930s. Many agree with C.S. Lewis that Colonel Blimp was 'the most characteristic expression of the English temper in the period between the two wars.'