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Charles James Fox (1749-1806) was one of the late eighteenth century’s most charismatic and influential politicians. From a very early age his career was closely followed by caricaturists and despite being in office for only very short periods of time in 1782, 1783 and 1806, the British Museum catalogues include over one thousand prints, which feature him in some way.

His lifetime spanned what M. Dorothy George regarded as the ‘Classic Age Of English Caricature’ and all the leading caricaturists of the day, such as Gillray, Rowlandson, Sayers, Dent, Colley, Isaac Cruikshank, Boyne and Williams, depicted Charles Fox in a wide variety of ways. Fortunately, both his name and his distinctive appearance enabled the cartoonists to etch him as someone who was immediately recognisable to their audience.

Charles, as son of the unpopular Henry Fox, was well known even as a young child. His celebrity status was enhanced as society became aware of his considerable natural ability and his larger-than-life personality. He was widely regarded as a child prodigy, but a wayward one, who was allowed to go unchecked. Indeed, his indulgent upbringing and rakish, adolescent lifestyle was the talk of the town. In his late teens, his impact on Parliament was immediate and lasting. He was recognised as a natural and brilliant orator who could entertain and mesmerize his audience. However, as a politician, he was flawed and often he made errors of judgement that not only kept him out of power but also provided first-rate material for the satirists. Fox was also deeply hated by the King, who considered him as having corrupted his eldest son. It is little wonder then that Charles Fox inspired the leading satirists of his day to excel themselves in their inventiveness and wit.
At the time of Fox’s birth in 1749 English caricature had begun the transformation from the emblematic print to political caricature. Hogarth’s ‘comic and moral’ portraits, although not regarded as caricatures by him, nevertheless laid an important foundation for what was to follow. In the decade prior to Fox’s' birth the Italian caricatura style was introduced into England and in 1756 George Townsend and Matthew Darly began producing their little cards of caricatures as a

to the political rancour felt at the time. It was in one of Darly’s small caricatures of 1757 that Charles, at the age of eight, first makes an appearance. He is with his father and elder brother and the subject is the acquisition of a lucrative sinecure held by Bubb Dodington. The cartoon is highly critical of the greed of the Henry Fox and of his children. Henry Fox was always portrayed as a fox in prints, with a fox’s head placed on a human body. This same treatment is given to his young children. Both are given wicked expressions as the detail below shows. By 1770, Charles Fox was a rising star in the House of Commons and was made a Junior Lord of the Admiralty. The satire THE YOUNG POLITICIAN, which was published around this time, shows him with all the arrogant confidence of youth. All these earliest portrayals of the young Charles Fox identify him simply as a young fox cub, with no attempt to achieve a resemblance. These early years in politics were ones where, following in his father’s footsteps, he defended his father’s honour. He resigned his post in 1772 over the Royal Marriage Bill. Later in that year he was made a Junior Lord of the Treasury, such were his talents.

1774 was a turning point in his life. Being dismissed from the Ministry for his reactionary views, he became a political isolate. However, he still managed to consistently fill the Commons because of his extraordinary skill in oratory. The death of his father that year made it possible for him to find his own way in politics and the first seeds of his long association with the Whigs were sown at this time. From 1776, Fox became important for his opposition to North and by 1778, Fox openly identified himself with the Rockingham Whigs.

At this time however, printmakers were more interested in Fox’s private life away from politics. On returning from a two-year trip abroad in 1768, Charles quickly established himself as the leading Macaroni in London. He pursued all the pleasures of the flesh and was already addicted to excessive gambling. Early prints show him dressed as Macaroni, with foxtails for identification, and as a compulsive gambler. Indeed these are the main themes of the few prints that were published prior to 1780.

During the 1770s, his lifestyle must have led to him putting on a great deal of weight because from 1780 an identifying feature is his corpulence. Fox as a leader of fashion, a gambler and a politician is the subject of the delightful little print entitled IN COUNCIL. The caption reads O – these are the Ears of an Ass not a Fox. His expression is intended to represent a simpleton.

In Parliament Fox pursued virulent attacks on North’s ministry at the time when war with America dominated politics. In 1780, he was elected MP for Westminster and in 1781, Horace Walpole described him as the ‘first figure in Parliament, at the gaming table, at Newmarket.’

The period 1782-84 was the high point of Charles Fox’s political career. After the British defeat at Yorktown, North’s administration began to fall apart and by March 1782, the King had no alternative than to form an administration of Whigs under Rockingham. Fox was given the post of Foreign Secretary. However, after Rockingham’s untimely death Fox resigned his post in July, being unable to work with Shelburne, who the King appointed to succeed Rockingham. This made him the object of much ridicule and satire. However, it was nothing compared to the vilification he had to endure when, in order to get back in power, he formed a coalition with Lord North. The king was desperate to keep him out of power but was unable to find anyone in March 1783 to form a government. In April, he reluctantly conceded and, under the nominal leadership of Portland, Fox once more became a Secretary of State and the driving force behind the Coalition. The King was determined to be rid of Fox as soon as he could. His chance came later that year when Fox introduced his India Bill and the young William Pitt agreed to form a minority administration. Pitt’s bravery was rewarded in the spring of 1784 when the King dissolved Parliament and called for a General Election. The Whigs were defeated all across the country and they became known as ‘Fox’s Martyrs’. Fox kept his Westminster seat after one of the most publicised campaigns in history.

There are a very large number of prints of Fox relating to this period of extreme political unrest. Significantly, they are by emerging satirists such as Sayers, Gillray, Dent, Rowlandson and Boyne. Consequently, 1782-84 is a most important time, not only for Charles Fox but also for the historical development of the satirical print. Fox’s antics provided the driving force behind a major revival of the political cartoon at a time when new artists were emerging that would develop the satirical print into an art form.

Each artist developed their own recognisable style of representing Fox. Indeed, it is during this period that we find the widest variety of artistic interpretations of Fox. He is shown as the animal itself, as a human with a fox’s head and brush (in many forms), as a highly caricatured human portrait and as a lightly caricatured one. In addition, Fox is made to take on a wide variety of roles, characters and situations. Gillray in particular, during 1782-83, adopts a wide range of etching styles and ways of interpreting Fox, as illustrated by the few examples here.

In contrast to Gillray, Sayers only developed a single style in which to etch Fox, (July 1782), with his important satire entitled PARADISE LOST. He sticks with a development of this style throughout the period. This makes his prints instantly recognisable. Sayers was most influential as the artist who represented Fox as ‘Carlo Khan’. His propaganda prints attacking the East India Bill significantly damaged Fox’s reputation.

John Boyne was a painter who occasionally etched satires in which Fox was depicted in theatrical situations or in costume. His neatly drawn figures of Fox as characters from Shakespeare plays and other plays popular at this time are again instantly recognisable and unique in their style.

Rowlandson began etching important representations of Fox in late 1783. However, it is his satires of the Westminster Election of 1784 that are the most significant. Like Gillray, he portrayed Fox as an animal when the theme of the print made it desirable. For example, when he was sheltering from the hunt under the skirts of the Duchess of Devonshire or suckling at her breast. However, the majority of his prints show Fox in human form completed in a style that can be described as ‘drawn from life’ as the two prints above illustrate.

There were a large number of other artists etching prints of Fox at this time who did not have the artistic ability of Gillray, Rowlandson or Boyne. Prominent amongst these I would rank Dent and Colley. Their style was cruder but nevertheless effective. There were also a host of anonymous amateur artists. However naive their drawing styles might be, collectively they had a powerful political influence and damaged Fox considerably in the 1784 Election.

Although after 1784 Fox was out of power, he was nevertheless still the clear leader of the Whig opposition. Parliamentary debates were still closely followed and reported in the press and print shops. Because Fox was still a supreme parliamentarian, who had lost none of his powers of oratory, he continued to be a force to be reckoned with. In the years between his fall from power and the French Revolution, Fox’s popularity as a subject for satire was maintained, even though significantly diminished from the heady days of 1782-4. In particular, the impeachment of Warren Hastings, which began in 1786, the crisis over the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Mrs Fitzherbert in 1787, and the Regency crisis of 1788-9 all stimulated print production. Fox was included in many of them and they were mainly hostile to him.

He remains instantly identifiable in the prints of this period because the conventions set for his representation appear now to be much more fixed than previously. He is no longer shown as an animal or part animal. Instead, exaggeration of his own natural features are the order of the day. Fox’s nicknames were ‘The Eyebrow’ or the ‘The Black Boy’ because of his large bushy brows and his ‘Levantine’ complexion and irrepressible beard. He was over 13 stone in weight and now dressed increasingly slovenly. In addition, since his adoption of the colours of buff and blue some years ago to show his support for the American War of Independence, his adopted dress aided recognition on prints, which were becoming much more frequently coloured than previously.

A particularly animated rendition of Fox connected with the Warren Hastings affair of 1788, showing his exaggerated features, is displayed in a print of 1788 entitled SUBLIME ORATORY – A DISPLAY OF IT.

Charles Fox liked the French people and had many connections in France with leading liberal thinkers. In contrast, he saw the House of Bourbon as the kind of despotic monarchy that the English King would aspire to, if left unchecked. Consequently, he supported the Revolution in France. The position in England between 1789 and 1792 was not entirely unsympathetic to the French and so Fox’s views had some representation. However, as the Revolution proceeded in ever more radical stages Fox’s views became marginal and he was unable to hold his party together on this issue.

A major crisis came in May 1791 when Burke, Fox’s friend and political mentor for many years, rose in the House of Commons to damn Fox’s stand on France. Fox shed copious tears during the exchange and this was ridiculed in many prints as in THE POLITICAL WEEPING WILLOW. Despite this split, Fox continued to be formidable and useful to the Whigs in Parliament long after he had ceased to be reputable.

The parliamentary year of 1792-3 was to be one of the most critical in Fox’s career as he adjusted to the execution of the French King and the declaration of war by France against Britain. He believed that Pitt’s emergency measures were fundamentally wrong. In Fox’s view, war was unnecessary and domestic sedition non-existent. He saw the war as giving the King the excuse to abrogate civil liberties. He used highly colourful language in his attacks and courted much controversy. This split the Whig party as most found Robespierre a greater threat to Whig values than King George. Many of his contemporaries thought he was simply in league with the Jacobins. This was untrue but it did not stop the Foxites ceasing to be a viable party of opposition as support for Fox evaporated away. In 1797, he decided to secede from Parliament altogether. Fox’s main interest in politics after 1794 was in his continued concern for France and the possibilities of peace.

Despite Fox’s rejection of the politics of radicals such as Pain and Horne Tooke, during the 1790s cartoons multiplied showing Fox as a French sympathizer, Jacobin and Revolutionary. A new element was introduced into his representation in satirical prints –Fox the sans-cullotte. In June of 1793, on the occasion of a public subscription to pay off some of Fox’s debts, Isaac Cruikshank shows him as a beggar in his print entitled A RIGHT HON…ALIAS... A SANS CULLOTTE.

More frequently Fox is shown wearing a bonnet rouge as in Gillray’s DUMOURIER DINING IN STATE AT ST JAMES’S, March 1793. Here he is presenting the head of Pitt to Dumourier after a (supposedly) successful invasion of England by France. Fox the traitor was a common theme at this time and was repeated in print after print.

Gillray also shows Fox in a revolutionary cap in his disturbing image of Fox entitled THE TREE OF LIBERTY, February 1797.

Cruikshank depicted Fox as a ridiculous, ageing member of the French military in THE REPUBLICAN SOLDIER in MAY 1798.

At the turn of the century, Fox’s age begins to show more and more in prints. He is now not only corpulent but also gouty, as illustrated in THE WORN OUT PATRIOT, October 1800

During this time, as the composition of prints became more elaborate, he is frequently depicted as a member of the opposition who is a secondary onlooker or commentator on the main subject of the satire.

However, his visit to Napoleon in Paris in 1802 is made much of. It is Gillray’s image of him that is the most striking in his print INTRODUCTION OF CITIZEN VOLPONE, November 1802.
Note how he is depicted in old-fashioned Court dress with a sword and a bagwig.

The main artists depicting Fox at this time included some of those who had risen to fame with him in the early 1780s. Gillray and Isaac Cruikshank were still producing a significant number of prints that included Fox somewhere in their design and Rowlandson and Sayers produced the occasional one. From 1804 onwards, Williams began to frequently satirize Fox. Echoing the earlier Gillray print, he shows Fox presenting himself to George the third in February 1806 when, after the death of Pitt, Fox once more is back in power as part of the ‘Ministry of Talents’.

This happy event for Fox led to a great many prints being produced about him during the last few months of his life. Over 50 images of Fox were created up to his death on September 13th, 1806. However, it is the poignancy of Gillray’s image of Fox; dated 28th July that has the most effect on the viewer.
The print leaves you in no doubt that Fox is dying and that his power is gone. As his body is worn out so is the dice box at his feet, cracked and useless. A great man has been brought to ruin.

It is an impossible task to represent the vast number of ways in which Charles James Fox was caricatured during his lifetime in such a short account. Only a tiny fraction of the prints of Fox have been illustrated here. The Fox took on many disguises –Reynard of course, but also Guy Fawkes, Cromwell, General Wolf, Carlo Khan, Falstaff, Proteus, Demosthenes, Confucius, Dagon, Phaeton, Gorgon, a weather cock, a dog, a cat, a serpent, a lunatic, and both Jesus and the Devil, to name only a few.

Fox was unique, his own man, who cared not a jot for public opinion. Throughout his long political career, his ability to create controversy never left him. If the political print exists as a response to strong feelings, widely differing views, unrest and dissatisfaction, then it can be said that Fox contributed more than any other politician of the late Eighteenth century to its development.

List of Prints, details of which are shown in this article

In order of appearance, left to right

BM 6387 THE FOX HUNT [W.Dent] 29.01.1784
BM 3579 THE STURDY BEGGAR [04.1757]
BM 4892 THE YOUNG POLITICIAN anon c. 1771
IN COUNCIL c. 1780
BM 5964 CHANGING PLACES -ALIAS -FOX STINKING THE BADGER OUT OF HIS NEST [Gillray] 22.03.1782
BM 6213 THE COLE HEAVERS [Gillray] 16.04.1783
BM 6012 GLORIA MUNDI, OR – THE DEVIL ADDRESSING THE SUN [Gillray] 22.07.1782
BM 6020 THE SOLILOQUY [Gillray] 12.08.1782
BM 6204 THE LORD OF THE VINEYARD [Gillray] 03.04.1783
BM 6011 PARADISE LOST [James Sayers] 17.07.1782
BM 6276 CARLO KHAN’S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO LEADENHALL STREET [Sayers] 05.12.1783
BM 6221 SCRUB AND ARCHER [J. Boyne] 25.04.1783
BM 6281 BANDITTI [J. Boyne] 22.12.1783
BM 6510 THE RIVAL CANDIDATES [Rowlandson] 08.04.1784
BM 6566 EVERY MAN HAS HIS HOBBY HORSE [Rowlandson]
01.05.1784
BM 6636 THE DANCING DOGS, AS PERFORMED AT SADLER’S WELLS, WITH UNIVERSAL APPLAUSE [Dent] 14.07.1784
BM 6236 PATENT SADDLES INVENTED SOLELY FOR THE EASE OF BOREAS AND REYNARD T.Colley 29.05.1783
BM 7270 SUBLIME ORATORY [Ramberg] [02.1788]
BM 7860 THE POLITICAL WEEPING WILLOW anon 13.05.1791
BM 8332 A RIGHT HONble ALIAS A SAN CULOTTE, ALIAS THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE [I. Cruikshank] 14.06.1793
BM 8318 DUMOURIER DINING IN STATE AT ST JAMES’S ON THE 15TH OF MAY, 1793 Gillray 30.03.1793
BM 8986 THE TREE OF LIBERTY MUST BE PLANTED IMMEDIATELY! Gillray 16.02.1797
BM 9204 THE REPUBLICAN SOLDIER! [I.Cruikshank] 12.05.1798
BM 9548 THE WORN OUT PATRIOT; OR THE LAST DYING SPEECH OF THE WESTMINSTER REPRESENTATIVE Gillray 13.10.1800
BM 9892 INTRODUCTION OF CITIZEN VOLPONE & HIS SUITE, AT PARIS Gillray 15.11.1802
BM 10528 THE NEW MINISTER OR – AS IT SHOULD BE
Argus[Williams] 02.1806
BM 10589 VISITING THE SICK Gillray 29.07.1806