Mocking Men of Power: Comic Art in Birmingham 1861-1911, Stephen Roberts and Roger Ward, Birmingham Biographies, 2014, 147p, £8-99.

ISBN 978-1502764560.

This is a remarkable book which provides a perspective on the open society which emerged in 19^th Century Britain, and which we have inherited richly, in which politicians were ridiculed in widely available publications, and it is true to say that it was a fate which they expected and indeed often enjoyed.

Stephen Roberts and Roger Ward have selected sixty cartoons which appeared in the Birmingham press between 1861 and 1911. The figures who feature in these cartoons inevitably included Joseph Chamberlain but they also included such figures as Francis Schnadhorst, the first famous political organiser; and singularly Birmingham figures such as the two influential clergymen George Dawson and Robert Dale. This is the period when Birmingham, through electoral reform, emerged, especially through Joseph Chamberlain, as a significant element in British politics. This was the period when municipal politics and national events began to be intertwined.

The authors very successfully introduce the influential cartoonists who made this political dimension for Birmingham so successful. In particular we are introduced to the career and achievements of George Henry Bernasconi who proved to be the most influential.  Learning about the creative minds who provided the cartoons is an extra bonus because it provides a link between the combative world of local politics and journalism and these more aesthetic individuals who converted opinion into humorous graphics.

Another highly significant element to this book is that the vast majority of the cartoons have been sourced from editions of the Owl and the Dart, held within the reserve collection of the Birmingham and Midland Institute's Library. This highly significant resource for Birmingham is barely known to Birmingham scholars and the public generally. This book gives the Birmingham and Midland Institute Library the prominence it warrants and one hopes that it may encourage other scholars to examine its extensive collection.