Pictorial Punch - Treasures from the Archive 

November 7, 2025

For over 150 years, Punch magazine was renowned for its original and provocative satire. From early cartoons such as John Leech’s anti-establishment “Substance and Shadow” (1843) to its later conservative social commentary, Punch’s pithy observations on both national and international affairs ensured the longevity of its success and confirmed the brand as a cornerstone of the British popular press. As a mass media trailblazer for both the visual and verbal, moreover, the magazine’s innovative branding model enabled its publishers to branch out into new markets and alternative formats such as the almanack and the pocket book.

The Punch Archive attests to the historical and cultural import of the brand and its evolving publication portfolio through its eclectic range of print culture materials and artefacts. Acquired by the British Library in 2004, it comprises three sub-fonds – the records of Punch; the financial archive of Bradbury and Evans, and Bradbury, Agnew and Co., successive owners and publishers of the magazine; and the papers of Richard Geoffrey G. Price, a Punch contributor – all of which, to this day, remain largely unknown to both the academic community and the wider public. Among these resources is the Henry Silver bequest which, besides personal correspondence, notebooks and diaries, comprises hundreds of unexplored original preparatory drawings and proofs by Punch artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Archive also includes a full collection of Punch’s Pocket Book (1843-1881), a lavishly illustrated annual which, over a period of forty years, efficiently promoted the brand.

In line with Punch’s Pocket Book Archive, an international digitisation project which proposes to deliver an open-access database based on a full run of these annuals, a symposium entitled “Pictorial Punch – Treasures from the Archive” will take place at the British Library on 7 November 2025. Organised by the Punch’s Pocket Book Archive team with the support of the Archives and Manuscripts Department, the event seeks to explore the breadth and diversity of this unplumbed material, and provide an opportunity for experts and enthusiasts alike to discover and discuss the Archive’s extensive catalogue, as well as other related items within the British Library’s collections. It will feature keynote presentations by two renowned specialists of nineteenth-century periodical studies, Dr. Patrick Leary, historian of the Victorian press and author of The Punch Brotherhood. Table Talk and Print Culture in Mid-Victorian London (The British Library, 2010), and Pr Julia Thomas (Cardiff University), Principal Investigator of the AHRC/NEH-funded Finding A Place: A research project to advance digital methods and unlock the use of digitized bookillustrations in cultural institutions, and a high-profile expert on Victorian visual and material culture.

This project is supported by the French government through funding managed by the National Research Agency under the France 2030 initiative (reference ANR-23-EXES-0001), and by the Normandy Region.

With support from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art