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Articles
Churchill in “Punch”: His Fanciful Hats Helped Fashion His Image
- By GARY L. STILES
- | February 24, 2022
- Category: Churchill and Art Explore
“One of the most necessary features of a public man’s equipment is some distinctive mark which everyone learns to look for and to recognize,” Winston Churchill wrote. “There had been in the past Disraeli’s forelock, Gladstone’s collars, Lord Randolph Churchill’s luxuriant moustache, Austen Chamberlain’s monocle and Stanley Baldwin’s homely pipe.”1 He omitted to mention that prominent item in his own cartoons: his hats.
The fine art of political cartoons was brilliantly developed in Punch or The London Charivari, (1841-1992, 1996-2002). The humor magazine hired the best cartoonists of each era. In Churchill’s time these included Leonard Raven-Hill, A.W. Lloyd, Leslie Illingworth, E.H. Shepherd, Bernard Partridge and F.H. Townsend.
Punch began publishing Churchill cartoons in 1900 and continued until 1988. Over 600 appeared, the work of more than 50 artists. Every one of them is presented and analyzed in my upcoming book, Churchill in Punch, to be published in May 2022.
Physically easy to caricature, Churchill encouraged admirers and lampooners alike. His distinctive facial features were accompanied by unique props, from cigars to “siren suits” to the V-sign. But none were as varied as his plethora of hats—objects of frequent amusement to Punch’s cartoonists.
Punch haberdashery
Churchill’s son Randolph accurately remarked, “My father never met a hat he didn’t like.”2 Winston collected and wore them throughout his life. A hat was a distinguishing accessory. He often wore one to create a specific persona, or to capture public or media attention, much as a writer might develop a character in a play. This was Churchill’s conscious decision, not invented by cartoonists, although they took joyful advantage of it. Artists focused on his headgear, using it to praise, mock or marginalize him on political or social issues.
The first Punch cartoon of Churchill with headgear (a top hat) appeared on 27 February 1901. It favorably compared him with his father, Lord Randolph. This was followed on 22 May by Churchill as Prince Henry in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, wearing a Tudor court headpiece.
About a third of Punch’s Churchill cartoons featured hats—nearly 70 different types and styles. The magazine also commented on them in written reports and vignettes. Some were nondescript or generic, but among identifiable types were the fedora (28 cartoons), top hat (20), sailor cap (15), bowler (9), admiral’s bicorn (8), and laurel wreath (5). The latter was used by cartoonists to lampoon him as a mock-Roman emperor.
He was also depicted wearing pith helmets, a Napoleonic hat, a polo helmet, a cricket cap, even an Indian headdress. The latter was not surprising, since he regarded himself (erroneously) as part Native American. Although he never wore it, the U.S. National Congress of American Indians presented him with a full headdress and the title “Ba-ja-bar-son-dey,” meaning “Great Leader of Men.”3
Embellishing the image
Punch’s Churchill hats burnished his persona and activities which the magazine wished to satirize. It is interesting to note the consistency with which Punch did this.4 Leonard Raven-Hill and A.W. Lloyd, active in Churchill’s earlier career, used hats in a third to half of their drawings. Leslie Illingworth, who came later, used them almost as often.
The variety of Churchill’s hats was jokingly reported in Punch’s “Charivaria” in 1919: “‘When Nationalisation comes,’ says a Labour leader, ‘I will throw my hat into the air.’ Now if Mr. Winston Churchill had said this it is quite conceivable that, from a picturesque point of view, the offer might be worth closing with.”5
That same year, Churchill was appointed to head both the Air Ministry and the War Office. A question was raised in the House of Commons: Was this too much for one person? The government replied that the Air Ministry was too small to require a full-time minister, but if ever Churchill found his work overwhelming, he would certainly give up one of his posts. Punch quipped: “On receiving this testimonial Mr. Churchill at once telephoned to his hatter for a larger size.”6
Grossly undersized
For Punch, the fun was not in larger Churchill hats but smaller ones. WSC’s “tiny” hats were a favorite of the magazine’s cartoonists. Some drew hats slightly too small for his head, while a few took this to the extreme. Apparently Churchill himself had encouraged the practice. During a 1910 election campaign, walking with his wife on a beach, he donned an old felt hat which by chance was too small. A photographer snapped a picture, and his small hat became a kind of trademark.7
Churchill confessed his preference a few years later when addressing the Worshipful Company of Feltmakers (hatmakers). Punch reported: “Mr. Winston Churchill said that none of the speakers had mentioned the most essential desideratum of a hat, and that was that it should be too small. Whether it began by being too small, or became in time too small depended on the wearer; but there was something smug and cowardly about a hat that fitted. It suggested failure.”8
Following that report on Churchill’s miniature headgear the number of cartoons would markedly increase and Punch would eventually produce 65 such images. A.W. Lloyd drew half of them, sometimes shrinking the hat preposterously. Most appeared in the 1920s, when Churchill was in political crosshairs. He had never quite lived down the wartime Dardanelles fiasco. He lost his longstanding seat in Dundee in 1922, and switched parties to become a controversial Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924.
Still, not all the tiny-hatted Winstons appeared in negative cartoons. By my count, only half were used negatively. The rest were jocular—really signs of amused affection. When war came again in 1939, Punch became more serious, and the miniature hats almost vanished.
Hat humor
Winston Churchill took all this tomfoolery in stride, and sometimes even abetted it. In April 1922, Punch reported a comedy of “Rival Hats”:
Mr. Churchill appeared as usual with bare head and grave demeanor to undergo the customary catechism about Ireland. After this gloomy utterance he left the House. But a few minutes later he was back again, wearing on his face a cheerful smile and on his head, hiding his massive brow, a hat—a tall silk hat!
Members looked at one another in wonder. What did this portend? Since the coalition came into existence Mr. [Austen] Chamberlain has been the only Minister to maintain the habit—almost universal with the great parliamentarians of the past—of wearing his hat while on the Treasury Bench. Did Churchill intend—hats and revolutions having often been associated—to challenge the authority of the Leader of the House; and was he, like the old-time boxer, throwing his castor into the ring as a gage of battle?
Presently, Mr. Chamberlain himself returned to the House. At once he observed Mr. Churchill’s unusual appearance, but, instead of tearing the offending hat from its place, throwing on the floor and jumping on it, he proceeded to his seat, his face wreathed in smiles. And this was scarcely odd because, in point of fact, he was himself the author of this comedy, and had dared Mr. Churchill to the hat adventure.9
Churchill and Punch used hats to their advantage, whether to create a mood, or to amuse, or to ridicule. True, cartoonists sometimes turned his headgear into political bludgeons. But to paraphrase what he said about alcohol, Churchill took more out of hats than hats took out of him.
Endnotes
1 Winston S. Churchill, “Cartoons and Cartoonists,” in The Strand Magazine, June 1931, 582-91. Reprinted in Thoughts and Adventures (1932 et seq.).
2 Michael Paterson, Winston Churchill: His Military Life 1895-1945 (Newton Abbott, Wilts.: David & Charles, 2006), 19-20.
3 Richard M. Langworth, Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2017), 5.
4 Cartoonists noted herein, together with their years and number of Churchill cartoons, are:
A.W. Lloyd (1914-53), 143, 63 with hats. Bernard Partridge (1901-45) 75, 28 with hats. Leonard Raven-Hill (1901-33) 61, 31 with hats. Leslie Illingworth (1941-55) 49, 12 with hats. Edward Tennyson (E.T.) Reed (1900-12) 69, 24 with hats. Ernest Howard (E.H.) Shepard (1928-52) 34, 12 with hats. Michael Cummings (1953-55) 46, 13 with hats. Frederick Henry (F.H.) Townsend (1912-1919) 24, all hatless.
5 “Charivaria,” in Punch, 22 October 1919, 341.
6 “The Essence of Parliament,” in Punch, 17 December 1919, 514.
7 Black, Jonathan, Winston Churchill in British Art, 1900 to the Present Day, London, Bloomsbury, 2017, p. 4.
8 “The Roofs of the Mighty,” in Punch, 18 June 1919, 486.
9 “The Essence of Parliament,” in Punch, 19 April 1922,
The book
Churchill in Punch, published by Unicorn in 2022, contains every Churchill cartoon the famous humor magazine ever published, together with detailed annotations about its circumstances, the artist, and the locations of surviving originals today. Quite a few are in museums or private collections. Churchill himself bought several and framed them for display at Chartwell.
The author wishes to thank the Punch Cartoon Library and TopFoto for help in the production of this article and for kind permission to reprint the images.
The author
Dr. Stiles is a physician, medical researcher and corporate executive, a student of history and art with a 40-year interest in Churchill and his writings. He is the Ursula Geller Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Research at Duke University (Emeritus) and is widely published in the medical and scientific literature. His first non-medical book was William Hart: Catalogue Raisonne and Artistic Biography (2020).