Volume 3. Mocking Men of Power

Stephen Roberts and Roger Ward, Mocking Men of Power: Comic Art in Birmingham 1861-1911, 154pp., 60 cartoons, ISBN 13: 978-1502764560, ISBN 10: 1502764563, £8.99, paperback.

A rash of satirical journals hit the streets of Birmingham from the 1860s onwards. Their full page political cartoons, drawn by, amongst others, G.H. Bernasconi and E.J. Mountford, attracted much attention in the town and beyond. 'Birmingham is becoming famous for its cartoons', one of the satirical magazines observed.

Birmingham was an intensely politically partisan town and the source of many key developments and controversies in the Victorian and Edwardian period. Inevitably Joseph Chamberlain figures prominently in this selection. But, as the exasperated George Dixon once burst out, to the delight of the satirists, 'Chamberlain was not Birmingham nor Birmingham Chamberlain'. There were many other key actors on the Birmingham scene, amongst them Dixon himself, George Dawson, John Bright, Jesse Collings and J.B. Stone. Their work and their contributions have long been overshadowed by the pervasive and still extant cult of Chamberlain. This book seeks to bring them out of the shadows.

Stephen Roberts is Visiting Research Fellow in Victorian History at Newman University, Birmingham. Roger Ward is Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences at Birmingham City University.