Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Sir Francis Carruthers Gould ('F.C.G.') (1844-1925), Cartoonist and journalist

Cartoonist ('F.C.G.') and journalist; born 2 December 1844, in Barnstaple, Devon. Worked in banking and stockbroking until his skill in caricature gained him regular employment, over the initials ‘FCG’, with Truth, the Pall Mall Gazette 1887–93 and Westminster Gazette 1893–1914, where he became assistant editor;[1] edited his own periodical, Picture Politics, 1894–1914 and also published several satirical books, including The Westminster Alice (1902) in collaboration with H.H. Munro (‘Saki’); a strongly radical member of the Liberal party, he was knighted for political services in 1906, following the party’s election landslide; died 1 January 1925 at Porlock, Somerset.

The National Portrait Gallery contains fifty-eight of his sketches of public men (‘Caricatures of Politicians by Sir Francis Carruthers Gould, c.1889–1912’, NPG 2826–2874) and other political cartoons are in the British Museum, London.

Sociable and modest, Gould maintained friendly relations with those he regarded as political opponents. On being offered a knighthood his response was the mock-Devonian ‘What be I to do with it?’[2]

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) The journal was launched in support of the Liberal Party.
2) Gould n.d., f.365; the quotation is borrowed from Lorna Doone.

Referencesback to top

Gould n.d.
Gould, F.C., ‘Autobiography’, MS, Parliamentary Archives, HC/LB/1/37/1, n.d. [but post-1920].

Hart-Davis 1972

Hennessy 2001
Hennessy, E., Coffee House to Cyber Market, London, 2001.

Matthew 2004
Matthew, H.C.G., ‘Gould, Sir Francis Carruthers (1844–1925)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004; online ed., January 2008.

Phinne 1903
Phinne, S.M., ‘Our Graphic Humorists: Mr F. Carruthers Gould’, Magazine of Art, 1903, pp.396–9.

Prosperi 1965
Mostra delle caricature di Liborio Prosperi, with biographical note, exh. cat., Palazzo Trinci, Foligno, Italy, 1965.

Watson [1903]
Watson, A., ‘F.C.G’ Caricaturist, London, n.d. [1903], unpaginated.