Punch (magazine)

Lore & Background

Punch was founded on 17 July 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells, on an initial investment of £25. It was jointly edited by Mayhew and Mark Lemon. It was subtitled The London Charivari in homage to Charles Philipon's French satirical humour magazine Le Charivari. Reflecting their satiric and humorous intent, the two editors took for their name and masthead the anarchic glove puppet Mr. Punch, of Punch and Judy; the name also referred to a joke made early on about one of the magazine's first editors, Lemon, that "punch is nothing without lemon".

Mayhew ceased to be joint editor in 1842 and became "suggestor in chief" until he severed his connection in 1845. The magazine initially struggled for readers, except for an 1842 Almanack issue which shocked its creators by selling 90,000 copies. In December 1842, due to financial difficulties, the magazine was sold to Bradbury and Evans, both printers and publishers. Bradbury and Evans capitalised on newly evolving mass printing technologies and also were the publishers for Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray.

Artistry

The term "cartoon" to refer to comic drawings was first used in Punch in 1843. Illustrator Archibald Henning designed the cover of the magazine's first issues. The cover design varied in the early years, though Richard Doyle designed what became the magazine's masthead in 1849.

Artists who published in Punch during the 1840s and 1850s included John Leech, Doyle, John Tenniel, and Charles Keene. This group became known as "The Punch Brotherhood", which also included Charles Dickens. Helen Hoppner Coode contributed nineteen drawings to Punch and is recognised as its first woman contributor. In the 1860s and 1870s, conservative Punch faced competition from upstart liberal journal Fun, but after about 1874, Fun's fortunes faded.

Gaining a market and relations with other papers

Punch became a staple for British drawing rooms because of its sophisticated humour and absence of offensive material. The Times and the Sunday paper News of the World used small pieces from Punch as column fillers. Punch gave several phrases to the English language, including The Crystal Palace, and the "Curate's egg" (first seen in an 1895 cartoon by George du Maurier). Several British humour classics were first serialised in Punch, such as the Diary of a Nobody and 1066 and All That.

Founding on a Shoestring

The two men, along with co-editor Mark Lemon, chose the name from the anarchic glove puppet of the traditional Punch and Judy street show, a character whose chaotic energy perfectly captured their satirical ambitions. The subtitle, The London Charivari, paid tribute to Charles Philipon's French humour publication Le Charivari.

There was also a wry internal joke: a quip that "punch is nothing without lemon," a nod to Lemon himself. The early years were turbulent. Financial pressures mounted, and by December of that year the struggling title was sold to printers and publishers Bradbury and Evans, the same firm behind the works of Dickens and Thackeray.

Coining the Cartoon and Building a Brotherhood

Punch seized on the word to label its own political illustrations, and the magazine's popularity carried the new meaning into everyday usage. Helen Hoppner Coode, recognised as the publication's first woman contributor, added nineteen drawings to its archive. Later decades brought Harry Furniss, Linley Sambourne, Phil May, and into the twentieth century, H. M. Bateman, Bernard Hollowood, and Norman Thelwell.

A Household Name from Drawing Rooms to the Empire

By the mid-1840s, Punch had transformed from a struggling threepenny weekly into a fixture of British domestic life. Its sophisticated wit and deliberate avoidance of offensive material set it apart from the cruder satirical press of the era, making it a welcome presence in middle-class drawing rooms and, eventually, in the households of royalty. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and a constellation of literary luminaries—Charlotte Brontë, Robert Browning, Thomas Carlyle, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson—were all among its readers. The Times and the Sunday paper News of the World regularly lifted short pieces for column filler, granting the magazine a degree of respectable visibility no other comic title enjoyed.

Peak, Decline, and a Long Farewell

Circulation tells a story of remarkable growth followed by a long, steady fade. After that post-war peak, however, the magazine entered an unbroken downward trajectory. Its material had long been collected into book form, and its legacy—embedded in the language, the visual vocabulary of political illustration, and the drawing-room culture of Victorian and Edwardian Britain—endured well beyond its last printed page.

Reader's Guide

Punch was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire. It was founded in 1841 and closed in 2002, with a revival from 1996 to 2002. Its mascot was Mr Punch from Punch and Judy. The magazine coined the modern sense of the word "cartoon" for humorous illustrations.

Did You Know?

• The magazine was revived in 1996 by Mohamed Al-Fayed but closed again in 2002.