ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

'A Professor' — James Edwin Thorold Rogers

Leslie Ward · March 29, 1884

'A Professor' — James Edwin Thorold Rogers
Leslie Ward ('Spy') renders the Oxford economist and historian James Edwin Thorold Rogers in characteristic side-profile, his stocky frame bundled into a dark frock coat, a rust-coloured handkerchief stuffed carelessly into the pocket. A tan top hat sits square on his head; a short white beard trims his jutting chin. He clasps a small card or note, mid-thought. The caption beneath reads simply *'a professor'* — wry for a man who was also a radical Liberal MP and a fierce critic of landlordism. The caricature's slight paunch and forward lean suggest intellectual preoccupation rather than physical vigour, a gentle mockery of academic self-importance rather than political menace.

Leslie Ward CC0