Edward Linley Sambourne (4 January 1844, Pentonville –3 August 1910) was a cartoonist for Punch. He was born in Pentonville, London, the son of Edward Moot Sambourne. His middle name of Linley comes from his mother's maiden name, Frances Linley.
At the age of sixteen, he attended the South Kensington School of Art for a short time, but then left and began working for John Penn & Sons, an engineering firm in Greenwich. Sambourne worked here as an engineering draughtsman, but bored with the work, he spent most of his time making sketches. A fellow worker, Alfred Reed, finding one of the sketches particularly amusing, showed the sketch to his father, German Reed, a friend of the then Punch editor, Mark Lemon in early 1867. Lemon was sufficiently impressed by the sketch that he published a drawing by Sambourne in the 27 April 1867 issue, of John Bright tilting at a quintain under the title of "Pros and Cons". Sambourne was a contributor to Punch for the next four decades. In 1871 he became the regular illustrator for the "Essence of Parliament" feature. By 1878 he was named the "cartoon junior", second only to John Tenniel.
Besides his work for Punch, he occasionally produced work for other magazines, and also produced illustrations for an 1885 edition of Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies.
In 1901, he became the chief cartoonist for Punch, taking over after John Tenniel's retirement. After his death his family preserved his Holland Park home largely as it has been in his lifetime and it is now open to the public as the Linley Sambourne House.
Contents |
Examples from his series of caricatures in Punch 1881-2, "Punch's Fancy Portraits":
 Cecil Rhodes bestriding Africa. |
More of Sambourne's caricatures from this series can be seen in the
articles for William Harrison Ainsworth,
Emma Albani, Matthew Arnold,
Lord Charles Beresford, William Black, George Granville Bradley, Robert
Browning, Hugh
Childers, Lord Randolph Churchill, Henry
Drummond Wolff, Henry Fawcett, James
Anthony Froude, George Joachim Goschen, Charles Gounod,
John Holker, Henry
Labouchère, Henry Parry
Liddon, John Lubbock, 1st Baron
Avebury, Henry
Edward Cardinal Manning, Oscar Wilde, Ouida, James Payn, George Augustus Henry Sala,
Eyre Massey
Shaw, Arthur
Sullivan, William James Erasmus
Wilson, and Garnet Wolseley, 1st
Viscount Wolseley
See also: Phylloxera, Cecil Rhodes.
Sambourne's descendants include grandson Oliver Messel (an acclaimed set designer and architect), great-grandson the Earl of Snowdon (the photographer and documentary filmmaker), and great-great-grandson Viscount Linley (the furniture designer and chairman of Christie's auction house).
EDWARD LINLEY SAMBOURNE (1844-1910), English draughtsman, illustrator and designer, was born in London, on the 4th of January 1844. He was educated at the City of London School, and also received a few months' education at the South Kensington School of Art. After a six years' "gentleman apprenticeship" with John Penn & Son, marine engineers, Greenwich, his humorous and fanciful sketches made surreptitiously in the drawing-office of that firm were shown to Mark Lemon, editor of Punch, and at once secured him an invitation to draw for that journal. In April 1867 appeared his first sketch, "Pros and Cons," and from that time his work was regularly seen, with rare exceptions, in the weekly pages of Punch. In 1871 he was called to the Punch " table." At the beginning he made his name by his "social" drawings and especially by his highly elaborated initial letters. He drew his first political cartoon, properly so-called, in 1884, and ten years later began regularly to design the weekly second cartoon, following Sir John Tenniel as chief cartoonist in 1901. Examples of his best work in book illustration are in Sir F. C. Burnand's New Sandford and Merton (1872), and in Charles Kingsley's Water Babies (1885), which contains some of his most delicate and delightful drawings. The design for the Diploma for the Fisheries Exhibition (1883) is of its kind one of the most extraordinary thingsin English art. As a political designer, while distinguished for wit and force, he was invariably refined and good-humoured to the uttermost; yet it is essentially as an artist that he takes his highest place. He died on the 3rd of August 1910.
See M. H. Spielmann, The History of Punch (London, 1895).
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   | Portrait of Linley Sambourne - National Portrait Gallery - Portrait NPG 3508; (Edward) Linley Sambourne |
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