PEOPLE ACCLAIM THEIR BUDGET

Original 10 3/4 inch x 8 1/4 inch Wood Engraved Cartoon page titled THE PEOPLE ACCLAIM THEIR BUDGET from Punch, April 27, 1910.

The 1909/1910 People’s Budget was a proposal of the Liberal government that introduced unprecedented taxes on the lands and incomes of Britain’s wealthy to fund new social welfare programmes. It passed the House of Commons in 1909 but was blocked by the House of Lords for a year and became law in April 1910.

It was championed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, and his young ally Winston Churchill, who was then President of the Board of Trade and a fellow Liberal; called the “Terrible Twins” by certain Conservative contemporaries.

The cartoon is by Leonard Raven-Hill (1867 – 1942). An English artist, illustrator and cartoonist. He was born in Bath and educated at Bristol Grammar School and the Devon county school. He studied art at the Lambeth School of Art and then in Paris under MM. Bougereau and Aimé Morot. He began to exhibit at the Salon in 1887 but moved back to London when he was appointed as the art editor of Pick-Me-Up. He also continued to work as a painter and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1889. In 1893 he founded, with Arnold Golsworthy, the humorous and artistic monthly The Butterfly (1893–94, revived in 1899-1900) but began his most prominent association with a publication when his drawings appeared in Punch in December 1895. By 1901 he had joined the staff of Punch as the junior political cartoonist. He contributed to many other illustrated magazines including The Daily Graphic, Daily Chronicle, The Strand Magazine, The Sketch, Pall Mall Gazette and Windsor Magazine.

Punch, or The London Charivari, was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term “cartoon” in its modern sense as a humorous illustration.

The page is in very good condition with minor foxing spots in the lower border. Reverse side blank.