George
Cruikshank
was born in London on 27th September, 1792.
His father, Isaac Cruikshank,
was a caricaturist who died as a result of his alcoholism in 1811.
After a brief education at an elementary school in Edgeware, Cruikshank
set himself up as a caricaturist in London. An early influence on
Cruikshank was James Gillray, Britain's
leading caricaturist at the time.
Cruikshank was soon selling his drawings to over twenty different
printsellers. This included a large caricature that appeared in each
issue of William Jones's satirical magazine, The
Scourge. These early drawings included attacks on the royal
family and leading politicians such as Lord
Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth.
George Cruikshank, like many people, was deeply shocked by the Peterloo
Massacre on 16th August, 1819. Cruikshank responded to this event
by produced one of his most powerful drawings, Massacre
at St. Peter's.
In 1818 George Cruikshank joined forces with
Radical publisher and bookseller, William
Hone, who was playing a leading role in the campaign against
the Gagging Acts. In their struggle for
press freedom, the two men produced The
Political House that Jack Built. Hone
later recalled he got the idea while reading the House
That Jack Built
to his four-year-old daughter. The 24 page pamphlet contained political
nursery rhymes written by Hone and twelve illustrations by Cruikshank.
The
Political House That Jack Built
was an immediate success selling over 100,000 copies in a few months.
The two men followed this success with a series of political pamphlets
including The
Queen's Matrimonial Ladder
(1819) and The
Man in the Moon
(1820). In August 1821 the two men produced a mock newspaper, A
Slap at Slop. Slop
was Hone's name for John Stoddart, a former radical who had become
the conservative editor of The Times.
A Slap at Stop was illustrated by twenty-six wood engravings, including
several on the subject of the Peterloo Massacre.
Cruikshank did not hold strong political
beliefs and was willing to produce anti-radical prints for Tory
booksellers like George Humphrey. This
included Death and Liberty, a
warning of the dangers that Radicals posed to the British Constitution
and The Female Reformers of Blackburn,
an attack on women becoming involved in politics. In September 1819
Cruikshank produced a Radical Reformer,
a print that illustrated the threat of a French style revolution.
Cruikshank appears to have
lost interest in politics in the 1820s and began to concentrate on
theatrical caricatures and book illustrations. In 1836 Cruikshank
met Charles Dickens
and the two men worked on several projects together. Cruikshank illustrated
Sketches by Boz
(1836) and Oliver Twist
(1838) and also supplied the drawings for Bentley's
Miscellany, a journal edited by Dickens.
Like many artists, Cruikshank was unhappy about the changes that had
resulted from the Industrial Revolution. In one print, London
Going Out of Town - On the March of Bricks & Mortar
(1829), Cruikshank attacked the building of houses on the green fields
of Islington. In another print The Horses
'Going to the Dogs' (1829)
he showed his dislike of the steam carriage that had been invented
by Goldsworthy Gurney.
Cruikshank was a strong supporter of the Temperance
Society and in 1847 produced The
Bottle which sold almost 100,000 copies and The
Drunkard's Children (1848). Cruikshank also became involved
in the movement to protect children and published several books on
the subject including A Slice of Bread and
Butter (1857) and Our
Gutter Children (1869). George
Cruikshank died on 1st February, 1878.
George Cruikshank, The Horses 'Going to the Dogs' (1829)
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