Fred Barnard's successor on the staff of Fun was John Gordon Thomson..., who drew "big cuts" (as Punch termed its central cartoons) for Fun from 1870 to 1893, when he was succeeded by Wallis Mackay. Thomson was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, on 2 September 1841, and had moved to London by the time he was twenty to work as a civil servant. Thomson contributed to Punch in 1861, The Graphic in 1870, and moved to Fun the same year. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1878, illustrated books and magazines for Samuel Beeton and others. — John Adcock, Yesterday’s Papers.
Biographical material
Works
- Political cartoons on the Disraeli-Gladstone rivalry from Fun
- Political cartoons on Gladstone & the Irish question from Fun
- Editorial cartoons about railways, working conditions, religion, and other subjects in Fun
- Title-page for Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens (1908)
Illustrations for Dickens's Pictures from Italy (1880)
- The Malle Post [frontispiece]
- Playing at Mora
- The Church and the World
- An Italian Dream
- Artists' Models
- Priests and Monks
- Pictures from Italy
- A Sketch at the Carnival — Rome
Links to related material
- Towneley Green's A Sketch at the Carnival
- The Artist-illustrators of The Graphic (1890)
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation and Pictures from Italy. Illustrated by J. Gordon Thomson and A. B. Frost. London: Chapman and Hall, 1880.
“John Gordon Thomson.” Yesterday’s Papers. Web. 2 April 2016. [Note: this gives his "presumed" year of death as 1911, but he is now known to have died in 1923.]
Thomson, John Gordon. "Engraved Title." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens; being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings, by Fred Barnard, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz); J. Mahoney; Charles Green; A. B. Frost; Gordon Thomson; J. McL. Ralston; H. French; E. G. Dalziel; F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes; printed from the original woodblocks engraved for "The Household Edition." London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.
Created 6 March 2019 Last modified 20 January 2022