The Fox Hunt by David Taylor

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.