Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 2nd Baronet — 'Permissive Prohibition'

Plate No. 184 in the *Statesmen* series, captioned "Permissive Prohibition" — the sardonic shorthand for Lawson's signature cause, the Permissive Bill, which would have let local ratepayers vote to ban alcohol sales in their district. Cecioni renders the radical temperance MP as a stooped, lanky figure in a heavy dark overcoat, hands buried in pockets, chin lost in an enormous auburn beard that nearly swallows his collar. The hunched posture and exaggerated ears and nose are standard Cecioni physical comedy, conveying earnest, slightly absurd moral rigidity rather than menace. Lawson was a Liberal backbencher and noted wit; the plate gently mocks the Nonconformist teetotal lobby he embodied without suggesting he was dangerous — merely a well-meaning eccentric tilting at Victorian pub culture.