ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

'A Radical Lawyer': John Walton, M.P.

Leslie Ward · Leslie Ward ('Spy'), *Vanity Fair*, 6 March 1902. Chromolithograph.

'A Radical Lawyer': John Walton, M.P.
Spy depicts John Walton — Liberal M.P. and barrister — seated at a cluttered desk, quill in hand, writing with brisk purpose. He wears full court dress: black silk gown, white bands, and the curled grey wig that marked English barristers of the period. The caption, *'a Radical lawyer,'* signals his politics with the magazine's habitual light irony; Walton was a prominent advocate of progressive causes and trade-union interests at the Bar. The caricature exaggerates his sharp, forward-jutting profile and compact frame. The cluttered papers and tied briefs behind him underline professional industry.

Leslie Ward CC0