Pictorial Punch - Treasures from the Archive

November 7, 2025

Provisional Programme

9:30-9:50: Welcome breakfast

9:50-10:10: Official welcome and introduction

Alice Zamboni - Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts, 1601-1950. The British Library. 

Françoise Baillet - Principal Investigator of the Punch's Pocket Book Archive project, Université Caen Normandie. 

10:10-11:40: Session 1 - Illustrators, Engravers and the Sensational

 Chair : Françoise Baillet

Lorraine Janzen Kooistra (Toronto Metropolitan University) - “Reading Pictorial Initials in Punch, 1841-1891”

Anne Anderson (Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London) - “‘Mr Punch’ and the Pre-Raphaelites: Image and Text” 

Tabitha Sparks (McGill University) - “Reading Women’s Sensation Novels with Mr Punch”

Emma Liggins (Manchester Metropolitan University) - “’Now Ladies if you Please’: George du Maurier’s Visualisations of mid-Victorian femininity in Punch and illustrated editions of Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1860s sensation fiction” 

11:40-11:55: Break   

11:55-12:55: Keynote Presentation - Patrick Leary - "The Education of Henry Silver"

Respondent: Clare Horrocks

12:55-2:00: Lunch  

2:00- 3:30: Session 2 - Decadence, Celebrity and Social Networks

Chair: Sonja Lawrenson

Bethany Dahlstrom (Lancaster University) - “Women and Birds in Edward Linley Sambourne’s Punch Cartoons” 

Clare Horrocks (Liverpool John Moores University) - "Into the Archive: the Illustrations and Correspondence of Linley Sambourne"

Jane Harrison (University of Portsmouth) - “‘The Lion Huntress of Belgravia’: The Victorian society hostess and her presentation in Punch”.

Nick Freeman (Loughborough University) - “‘What would life be without coffee?’: Punch, Decadence, and Ambivalence during the Fin de Siècle” 

3:30-4:30: Keynote Presentation - Julia Thomas - 'In Search of Punch's Pocket Book: A Digital Treasure Hunt'

Respondent: Bethany Qualls

4:30 – 4:45 - Break

4:45 – 5:45 Session 3  - Bradbury and Evans Panel

Chair: Francoise Baillet

Christopher Gangadin Anderson (Independent scholar) -  “Mayhew’s Punch”

Elliot Andrews (University of Leicester) -  “A Wretched Arithmetician: John Leech and the Etiquette of Money in the Punch Brotherhood”

Katy Birch (Aberystwyth University) - “Researching Female Punch Writers in the Contributors Ledgers”

5-45: Closing remarks

7:30: Study Day dinner