"Committee of selection", April 8 1882, Vanity Fair

"Committee of selection", Sir John Robert Mowbray, 1st Bt ('Statesmen. No. 396.'), April 8 1882, Vanity Fair

Image shows a rectangular full-length colour portrait of a white middle-aged male on a plain pale blue background. He is wearing dark smart clothes with shiny black shoes and a top hat. He stands and faces out to the right with his hands folded behind his back and a downcast look on his face. On the top right of the image is a symbol, a hand with an open palm placed within a shield shape. Text appears written in the bottom right of the image that reads 'spy'. Above the illustration, text on the left reads 'VANITY FAIR' and to the right, 'April 8. 1882.' Below to the right reads 'Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Lith.' and a subtitle to the centre 'Committee of Selection'.

Sir John Robert Mowbray (1815-1899), 1st Baronet, was known as John Cornish until 1847, when he unusually took his wife's (heiress Elizabeth Mowbray) surname through royal license to acknowledge the large fortune into which he married. He was a judge and Conservative politician, serving as MP for Durham City from 1853 to 1868, then for Oxford University until his death. Oxford University was a named constituency from 1603 to 1950, when it was eventually abolished following the Representation of the People Act 1948. Its electorate was not based on geographical area, but of graduates and alumni, restricted to male graduates with a Doctorate or MA degree at the time of Mowbray's seat. Mowbray was himself an Oxford graduate of Christ Church College, with both an MA and D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Law). He was appointed Privy Counsellor in 1858, Justice of the Peace for County Durham, and was created 1st Baronet Mowbray in 1880. The title of the caricature (by well-known satirical portraitist Sir Leslie Ward, 1851-1922) refers to Mowbray's position in the House of Commons as chair of the Committee of Selection and of the Standing Orders Committee, dealing with legislation in the selection of public bills. In 1898 he was given the title Father of the House, which refers to either the longest continuously serving member, or the oldest member of Parliament. The only formal duty required is to preside over the election of the Speaker of the House.

Ward's caricature appeared in the April 8th edition of Vanity Fair, placing Mowbray as number 396 in a series of statesmen portraits featured by the periodical, known for its distinctive type of satirical portraiture. The appearance of ‘spy’ within the illustration refers to the pseudonym used by Ward (1851-1922) during his tenure as a Vanity Fair portraitist. He worked in watercolour, and his images were then turned into chromolithographs for publication.

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