Collection: John Tenniel   1820 - 1914 

Born in London in 1820, Sir John Tenniel was the principal political cartoonist for England’s Punch magazine for over 50 years and illustrated Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, which are considered to be his finest and most enduring achievement. They must also rank among the world’s best-known children’s images.

An ultimate tribute came to an elderly Tenniel as he was honoured as a living national treasure and for his public service was knighted in 1893 by Queen Victoria. The first such honour ever bequeathed on an illustrator or cartoonist, his fellows saw his knighting as an important step in raising what had been considered a fairly lowly profession to an unprecedented level of respectability.

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