Francis Carruthers Gould
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
caricaturist and political cartoonist, was born in Barnstaple
Barnstaple
Barnstaple is a town and civil parish in the local government district of North Devon in the county of Devon, England, UK. It lies west southwest of Bristol, north of Plymouth and northwest of the county town of Exeter. The old spelling Barnstable is now obsolete.It is the main town of the...
, Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
. He published as F. Carruthers Gould and signed his cartoons FCG.
Biography
Although in early youth he showed great love of drawing, he began life in a bank and then joined the London Stock ExchangeLondon Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
, where he constantly sketched the members and illustrated important events in the financial world; many of these drawings were reproduced by lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
and published for private circulation. In 1879 he began the regular illustration of the Christmas numbers of Truth, and in 1887 he became a contributor to the Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
, transferring his allegiance to the Westminster Gazette
Westminster Gazette
The Westminster Gazette was an influential Liberal newspaper based in London. It was known for publishing sketches and short stories, including early works by Raymond Chandler, Anthony Hope and Saki, and travel writing by Rupert Brooke. One of its editors was caricaturist and political cartoonist...
on its foundation and subsequently acting as assistant editor.
Among his independent publications are Who killed Cock Robin? (1897), Tales told in the Zoo (1900), two volumes of Froissart
Jean Froissart
Jean Froissart , often referred to in English as John Froissart, was one of the most important chroniclers of medieval France. For centuries, Froissart's Chronicles have been recognized as the chief expression of the chivalric revival of the 14th century Kingdom of England and France...
's Modern Chronicles, told and pictured by FC Gould (1902 and 1903), and Picture Politics--a periodical reprint of his Westminster Gazette cartoons, one of the most noteworthy implements of political warfare in the armoury of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
. With Sir Wilfrid Lawson he published Cartoons in Rhyme and Line (1905).
Frequently grafting his ideas onto subjects taken freely from Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881...
, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
, and the works of Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
and Shakespeare, Gould used these literary vehicles with extraordinary dexterity and point, but with a satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
that was not unkind and with a vigour from which bitterness, virulence and cynicism were notably absent. He was knighted in 1906. Unpublished manuscripts and biographical material are in the House of Commons Library
House of Commons Library
The House of Commons Library is the library and information resource of the lower house of the British Parliament. It has adopted the phrase "Contributing to a well-informed democracy" as a summary of its mission statement.- History :...
historical collections, kept in the House of Lords Record Office.