Mr Punch and the Iron Duke
The Duke of Wellington proved a gift to the cartoonists of 'Punch' - he was a figure the magazine's readership would recognise, and he did not look unlike Mr Punch himself.
Writing of the 'queen's business' which had aroused such popular interest in 1820, the Duke of Buckingham noted in no uncertain terms that Caroline's cause '... had enjoyed every assistance which a considerable portion of the press could afford it... George Cruickshank manufactured the most stinging satires and the most ludicrous caricatures'. What Buckingham failed to realise however, was that Cruickshank's unprecedented success lay chiefly in his ability to identify and encapsulate popular opinion. Indeed, over the ensuing three decades, there was a veritable mushrooming both of the newspaper and periodical press, in an attempt to satisfy the intellectual needs of an increasingly politicised nation.
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