George Higginson Allsopp, 'Beer'

Signed by Liborio Prosperi under his pseudonym *Lib*, this chromolithograph caricatures the Hon. George Higginson Allsopp, Conservative M.P. and scion of the Burton brewing dynasty, under the caption 'beer' — a one-word joke at the family trade. Prosperi renders Allsopp in profile as a prosperous, rotund figure in a tan lounge suit and bowler hat, carrying a walking stick and wearing a satchel or field glass case across his chest. The prominent belly and heavy jowls are affectionate rather than savage: Allsopp was no political villain, merely a brewing interest in Parliament. The caricature gently satirises the era's tied-trade debates — licensing reform threatened fortunes like the Allsopps' — by reducing a legislator to his commercial identity.