Waiting for June and the 30x30 challenge 2026

I’ll be winding down my Boer War cartoon copies over the next few days. Why? Because tomorrow is the first day of June. June is the month of the 30x30 Direct watercolour challenge. Direct watercolour means no preparation, no preliminary sketching, just making your watercolour painting directly onto your paper. The challenge is to average one painting per day and to complete 30 paintings in the month of June.

I first took part in the challenge in 2018 and I completed it. I repeated in 2019, didn’t start in 2020, completed it in 2021, 2022 and 2023. I started the challenge in 2024 but gave up. I’ll come back to that. Then I completed it again in 2025.

Certainly if you compared my 2025 set of paintings with my 2018 paintings I think you’d agree that I’ve improved. And again, I think that while I’ve produced some paintings I’m delighted with in each set since 2022, I think as a complete set each in the 2020s has been better than the previous. With the exception of 2024. Here’s some of my favourites from each set. Please bear in mind though that these were pretty much the best from each set - they weren't all like this:-

2018

 

2019

 

2021

 

2022

 

2023 

2025

Of course, this does mean that I can end up putting pressure on myself to outdo the previous year. So 2024 came along. And the first few paintings just didn’t work. This put me off and I started begrudging the time to spend doing it. Then I started trying to blag my way through the month by making small pictures in an A6 sketchbook. But the whole thing just made me so despondent I gave up before I was a third of the way through.

So getting off to a decent start tomorrow will be vital. Last year I was pleased with the painting I made of an old Royal Mail van which was so much better than anything I’d done the year before.

One of the obstacles I’ll need to overcome is that last year I broke my shoulder on the last weekend of May and was off work all June. Thankfully it was my left shoulder and I’m right handed so it didn’t affect my ability to paint, and being off work meant I had the time to do it. I’m in work every weekday in June now, so won’t have as much time for painting as I did last year. But then, most of the years I’ve completed the challenge I have also been in work every weekday so this doesn’t necessarily have to make it that much harder.

So, what are my chances? Pretty decent I think. I have the materials that I need- just bought some replacement brushes and paints yesterday. I have enough proper 300 gsm watercolour paper for all 30 paintings. I’ve learned just one or two more techniques since this time last year – only in the last few months have I learned how to use masking fluid, for example. I’ve thought about the sort of things that I might like to paint too – certainly for the start of the month I think I’m going to embrace a nostalgic seaside theme. So all we need now is for June to arrive so we can start. Watch this space.

Sunday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s Boer War cartoon is a copy of an original by Harry Furniss, which appeared in The King on May 19^th 1900.

Harry Furniss is an artist illustrator whose work I have copied in the past. Harry Furniss was born in Ireland but worked for the most part of his career in England. He joined the staff of Punch in 1880 and stayed with the magazine for 14 years, before parting company with them after he sold a cartoon that had appeared in Punch first to Pears soap to use in their advertising.

Harry Furniss was reportedly very upset that he was too young to illustrate Alice in Wonderland when it was published. He did illustrate Carroll’s later Sylvie and Bruno books, but found it to be a very frustrating experience. When the Alice books did fall out of copyright, Furniss did illustrate Wonderland, and I made several copies of his illustrations. Here’s my copy of his illustration of Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

I don’t know “The King” magazine and I haven’t been able to find out any information about it. I would guess that it was one of many magazines that came along trying to grab a slice of the popularity of Punch and probably didn’t last very long. When Furniss’ attempts to create his own successful humour magazine floundered he moved to America, becoming a writer and actor in very early movies, and reputedly even making an animated film for Thomas Edison.

To the cartoon, then. I’ve been quite critical of the attitude expressed in many of the cartoons I’ve copied, but to be honest I really find this one quite objectionable. The point of the cartoon is to hail Lord Roberts, whose appointment as Commander in Chief of the British Empire forces had seen the tide of the war turn in favour of the Empire. The method Furniss used to do this was to compare the war to a grand military tournament. It puts me specifically in mind of the Royal Tournament, the world’s largest military pageant and tattoo staged annually from 1880 to 1999. I saw it a couple of times with my cub scout pack in the early 70s.

Comparing the bloody business of war to a military pageant is not something I can get in board with. But far, far worse than this is the central image of Lord Roberts, on horseback, plunging his sword into what one can only hope is an effigy of the head of a Boer soldier. It’s pretty horrible.

Technically, I do think it’s a brilliantly executed cartoon. If you look at my copy of the Alice in Wonderland illustration above, I think you can tell that the rabbit and horse images were composed by the same artists. I do like the back view of the large soldier in the foreground, almost a silhouette. It’s remarkable to think that ten years earlier, Furniss, Tenniel, Linley Sambourne and Bernard Partridge were all contributing to Punch at the same time. What a talented team.

Saturday Boer War Cartoon

J.M. Staniforth here again. This one appeared in June 1899 in Wales’ Evening Express. It’s another cartoon published during the few months leading up to the outbreak of the Boer War.

What we see is John Bull, seemingly with toothache having bitten hard on something too tough to bite through. He stands before what looks to be a lushly forested area, and bears a piece of paper in his right hand, which seems to refer to President Paul Kruger’s ultimately fruitless meetings with Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner for Southern Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony. On the floor is a roll with the words Uitlanders Petition. The caption is A Hard Nut To Crack.

What I like about this is that it doesn’t seem to lay the blame at the feet of supposed Boer stubbornness, but admits that the whole situation is extremely difficult. If anything, it seems as if the cartoon is saying that Uitlanders’ petition is the problem. The cartoon seems a pretty good forecast of what the next couple of years would bring. Yes, eventually the Boers did have to surrender, the Transvaal and Orange Free State were annexed and eventually would be part of the Union of South Africa. But it was very difficult for the British Empire, with all the huge resources at its command, to accomplish and cost a staggering amount in terms of money and lives. A hard nut indeed.

Friday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s cartoon appeared in a French magazine during the early months of the war, drawn by Jead’Aurian.

It shows Transvaal president Paul Kruger, with a sickle in his right hand and his left arm around a young lady, who has an armful of flowers. Slightly behind and to the left is Queen Victoria, with a wounded left arm and a worried expression on her face. The young lady has Republique d’Orange written on the hem of her dress. The sling around Victoria’s left arm has the word Ladysmith upon it, and the bandage on her head has the word Glencoe. The inscription below is:-

“Nous n’irons pas aux Boers, les lauriers sont coupés, la belle que voila vient de les ramasser!” – which is a pun on the first line from an old traditional French rhyme. If you substitute bois for Boers you get, - we will not go to the woods, because the laurel trees have been cut down and the beautiful girl has come to gather them up - . Which pretty much seems to have the meaning that the best peas have gone to farrow. The meaning when applied to the images are basically that the Transvaal has embraced the Orange Free state, and together the two Boer republics have wounded Britain with the siege of Ladysmith and the heavy casualties inflicted upon the British forces at the Battle of Glencoe, also called the Battle of Talana Hill, the first major engagement of the war.

What strikes me about this cartoon is how modern it looks stylistically. In terms of the modelling of the main figures it might easily have been made in the 1960s or after. If anything, this is a pointer towards the future. In Britain, though, the more realistic tradition of Tenniel would continue to be dominant for some time yet.

Thursday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s cartoon is copied from an original by Clifford K. Berryman. Berryman was a cartoonist who worked extensively in Washington D.C. and this cartoon appeared in the Washington Post on March First 1900.

 

The cartoon shows a very large John Bull-ish British soldier looking down on a diminutive Boer soldier, between which are the words Paadeberg Drift. Paarderberg was a hard fought battle in February 1900 in which the Boer forces of General Piet Cronje were besieged and then surrendered to the British force commanded by Lord Roberts.

The message of the cartoon seems pretty clear to me. American public opinion, like that of much of the rest of the world, was pretty hostile to the war and in this cartoon the relative sizes of the soldiers are reinforced by the two banners proclaiming the sizes of the relative armies in the battle. The overweight, sneering British soldier – and John Bull was a figure commonly used to depict Britain by American cartoonists – looks like a swaggering bully

Wednesday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s cartoon is a very interesting one. It was drawn by Bernard Partridge and it was published in Punch on May 15^th 1901.

Bernard Partridge was the artist who became the chief cartoonist in Punch after Edward Linley Sambourne in 1909. He had trained as an architect and then gone on to design stained glass windows for churches, having also acted on stage under the name Bernard Gould. Partridge joined the staff of Punch in 1891, so worked for the magazine at the same time as Tenniel and Linley Sambourne. Partridge, like Tenniel before him, would produce work for Punch for over 50 years, continuing right up until his death in 1945. He’s probably better known for his work during world war I than he Boer War, when he did design posters for the Government as well, and again, like Tenniel before him, he would receive a knighthood, in 1925.

In some ways Partridge seems to have been less reactionary than Tenniel was. For example, he supported the cause of women’s suffrage. And you can maybe make out a case that this cartoon is less conspicuously anti-Boer than many I’ve copied. But. The cartoon presents the stage of the war as a cricket match. A Boer general – I’m not sure which one it is meant to represent – stands at the wicket, steadfastly ready to block the next delivery. Herbert Kitchener, in the guise of a wicketkeeper stands ready to make a catch. Beneath the cartoon is the title The Last Wicket, and underneath that the caption ‘Kitchener (Captain and wicket keeper) “He has kept us in the field a deuce of a time; but we’ll get him now we’ve closed in for catches.” To me this is commenting on Kitchener’s policy of using block houses and concentration camps – the block houses restricting the Boers’ opportunities to range wide and strike strategically and the concentration camps preventing the Boer families imprisoned there from providing aid to the fighters. And in one way, the cartoon is right in as much as Kitchener’s policies would , eventually, result in the Boer surrender.

But. Although you might say that the cartoon does seem to acknowledge the Boers’ tenacity, to a modern eye it’s just a bit obscene comparing what was really happening to a cricket match. It’s all very ‘playing fields of Eton’. I cut Partridge a little bit of slack here since Emily Hobhouse had not yet delivered her report on the conditions in the concentration camps to Parliament – that would happen in June, so he probably had no more idea of exactly what was going on than the rest of the country.

Tuesday Boer War Cartoon

Another J.M. Staniforth cartoon from the build up to the Boer War. This is titled SLOW and SURE.

 

The cartoon shows a miner in the foreground who seems to be undergoing instruction from Paul Kruger who is chalking upon a blackboard. Between the two the ghostly figure of Joseph Chamberlain looms disapprovingly. On the blackboard, Kruger has been chalking up the conditions for the Uitlanders – people born outside the Transvaal, primarily gold miners – to be eligible to vote. The figure of 11 years has been crossed out to be replaced with 9. Below it the caption reads:-

PRESIDENT KRUGER (to British colonist) :”There, see what I am doing for you. Ain’t you very grateful. Who is your true friend now?”

The subtext, I should think is that Kruger is by no means being a friend to the Uitlanders, whose real friend was Joseph Chamberlain in the Colonial Office in London. It’s a bit misleading. I firmly believe that his actions show that Chamberlain wanted to annex the Boer Republics all along. Yes, it’s not clear how much he knew about the Jameson Raid, but many have speculated that it was all part of his strategy. The Uitlanders were a convenient cause to adopt as a pretext. The cartoon is misleading as well, because Kruger would have tried to find a way to accept a reduction to 7 years qualification period. But it was also about the oath of loyalty. In order to vote in an election, Uitlanders would also be expected to swear an oath of loyalty to the Transvaal and this proved to be a sticking point for many of them.

Monday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s cartoon is another Edward Linley Sambourne cartoon. This one is from late 1900 at a time when Transvaal President Paul Kruger had managed to leave Africa and was trying his best to raise support for the Boer cause from Europe.

The cartoon shows Paul Kruger, smoking a pipe and reading a paper with a glass of wine by his side. The setting seems to be a bar of some kind, and the waitress, glancing at him, seems rather concerned about him being there. The clue to the meaning is the sing at the top of the wall, that reads “Unter Den Linden”. This is a famous street in Berlin which ran from the Kaiser’s palace to the Brandenburg gate. The significance of this is that Kruger had to cool his heels in a bar, reading the paper and smoking his pipe, because Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to meet him. The waitress’ expression is probably indicative of the fact that his presence is a bit of an embarrassment.

Kaiser Wilhelm II was a complicated personality. His arm was injured in the way he was delivered when he was born, and he suffered from feelings of inferiority . He was at times very proud of his English connection – he was the first grandson of Queen Victoria – yet at the same time he could be very suspicious and jealous of Great Britain. After the failure of the Jameson Raid, Wilhelm sent a telegram of congratulations to Paul Kruger, and then was astonished when this was angrily condemned in Britain, and led to him being ostracised by the British Royal Family for some time. This may be why he distanced himself from the Boers.

After the war he would even claim that he had provided Lord Roberts with the plans and strategy to defeat the Boers!

Sunday Boer War Cartoon

Well, would you believe it? I found another source and managed to find a couple more Tenniel Boer War cartoons. This one was published in Punch on 27^th December 1899.

I think that this one is pretty self-explanatory. We see Father Christmas speaking to the seated figure of Transvaal President Paul Kruger and blaming him for spoiling the Christmas season of 1899.

In one way you have to almost admire Tenniel’s sheer cheek in this. Cartoon. He clearly blames Kruger for having been given no other choice than effectively give up the Transvaal’s independency and ceded sovereignty to Britain, or go to war. Either that or he blames Kruger for the Boer Army not rolling over obediently but instead having the best of the fighting in 1899.

Tenniel would reuse this image of Kruger in his 1900 cartoon Full of Resource. As for Father Christmas, well, Tenniel often made Christmas cartoons for Punch using Father Christmas, and it was this very traditional English version of Father Christmas that he tended to use, compared with the Santa Claus cartoons being produced by his American friend and contemporary, the great Thomas Nast. Tenniel’s Father Christmas is not Santa, the giver of gifts to children who hve managed to stay off the naughty list. He’s the spirit of seasonal good cheer, and this certainly makes sense of why he would be appearing in Punch after Christmas Day.

I’ve copied several of Tenniel’s Christmas cartoons in the past, for example the 1891 Punch cartoon – Awakening Father Christmas.

Saturday Boer War Cartoon

Since I’ve already widened my repertoire of copies of Boer War cartoons to Edward Linley Sambourne, I’ve copied this cartoon which appeared just before the start of the Boer War, by J.M. Staniforth.

 

Joseph Marwood Staniforth started publishing cartoons, mainly in the Wales and West of England Western Mail newspaper in the late 1880s. His cartoons often focused on social arrest in these areas, and he would continue as the Western Mail’s principal cartoonist until his death in December 1821.

Staniforth made a significant number of cartoons on the subject of the Boer War.This one appeared in the immediate period leading up to the outbreak of the Boer War. The editorial accompanying this cartoon spoke of what it called the very reasonable terms and conditions put forward by Joseph Chamberlain and the Colonial office  and the – as they saw it – intransigence and delaying of tactics of the Transvaal President Paul Kruger, pictured here as the Sphinx.

I’m not an expert ln Staniforth, but generally of his cartoons that I’ve seen they seem to be rather less detailed than either Tenniel or Linley Sambourne and make less use of shading. 

Friday Boer War Cartoon

I confess that I’m running out of Tenniel cartoons about the Boer War to copy, and so this is another Linley Sambourne cartoon, that appeared in Punch on December 13^th 1899.

The title is Disillusioned!. The cartoon is split in two parts by an uneven vertical line. On the left-hand side of the line, which is captioned What they thought Tommy was – it depicts disorganised British soldiers falling around and panicking when an artillery shell bursts overhead. On the right-hand side of the line we see a much larger, more close up British soldier scaling a near vertical cliff face, undaunted by the slumped figure of a comrade to the right.

The message is that, in the view of Linley Sambourne at least, the Boers expected the British army would be easily beaten, especially following what had happened in the first Boer War, but that they soon found out that the British soldiers were a lot tougher and more determined than they expected.

The unintentional irony of the cartoon is that when the cartoon appeared, the British and Empire forces had suffered by far the worst of the fighting thus far, so much so that the same week in which this cartoon was published was nicknamed 'Black Week' after the reverses that they suffered.

Thursday Boer War Cartoon - Edward Linley Sambourne

You know, I’ve been running out of Tenniel cartoons about the Boer War. So I’ve made a copy of a Linley Sambourne cartoon. Who?

Edward Linley Sambourne was born 24 years after Tenniel, in 1844. His original career was as an apprentice engineer, but he was moved into the drawing office when his aptitude was discovered. His work came to the attention of Punch editor Mark Lemon, and he had his first drawing published in the magazine when he was 23 in 1867.Within 4 years he had become a staff member, although he was not to provide his first political cartoon until 1884. Ten years later he began to regularly draw the magazine’s second cartoon. Finally, upon Tenniel’s retirement in 1902 he became the principal cartoonist for Punch.

You have to feel for him a bit. After waiting so long for Tenniel to step down, Linley Sambourne could only enjoy the position as top dog for 8 years, passing away in 1910.

I think it’s fair to suggest that working for the same magazine for which Tenniel had been principal cartoonist for so long must have rubbed off on Linley Sambourne a bit. His personification of Ladysmith in this cartoon, for example, is very similar to the Britannia that Tenniel himself used so often. However, I do feel that there is usually a little less of the caricature about Linley Sambourne’s work than there is with Tenniel. This may be his legacy as an apprentice engineering draughtsman. There’s even a precision about his hatching and shading, compared with Tenniel’s.

I have actually copied one of Linley Sambourne’s drawings before – this one which hailed Tenniel’s knighthood.

Wednesday Boer War Cartoon

This cartoon appeared in Punch in September 1900. It depicts Transvaal President Paul Kruger in a rowing boat, sadly abandoning a sinking ship called the Transvaal and it has the title THE SINKING SHIP.

 The meaning is fairly obvious, although the connotations are a little unfair to Kruger. The Transvaal Government, Pretoria having been captured in June, decided that they would not risk Paul Kruger being captured and so sent him first to Laurenco Marques in Portuguese Mozambique, from which he would eventually embark to Europe, where he would spend the rest of his life until his death in 1904.

When I say the connotations, what I mean is that when you look at the phrase “sinking ship’ you can’t help thinking about the saying ‘rats leaving a sinking ship’. Well, I’m sorry but I don’t see Paul Kruger as being any kind of rat. But also there’s the connotation of him fleeing from his country and leaving it to its fate to save his own skin. Unless you believe that the man was a total hypocrite, it just wasn’t the case. Kruger believed that he could do the best job for his country by not being caught and imprisoned and raising as much international support as he could.

Tuesday Boer War Cartoon

Sorry, somehow I just didn't manage to get my act together yesterday morning. Tuesday’s cartoon was published on September 27^th 1899, just a matter of days before the outbreak of the Boer War.

 

The title is “All a Toss Up” and the scene is an aging matador facing nervously up to a huge, angry bull with a human face. The matador is president of the Transvaal Paul Kruger – you can see the word Transvaal written on the cloak he is waving in the bull’s face. The bull itself is a visual pun, for it has the face of John Bull, the allegorical personification of Middle England. The title, all a toss up, strikes me as a little bit of a pun too. We know that the phrase has the colloquial meaning of something that could go either way. However, I think it also has the idea behind it that if the matador puts a foot wrong, he will end up being tossed up into the air on the bull’s horns.

In the events behind the cartoon, Kruger was as sure footed as anyone could have been in his manoeuvring and negotiations with the British over Uitlanders rights, until given no choice, really. So, if Tenniel was suggesting that war might have been avoided he was either ignoring or severely underestimating the intransigence of the British.

Monday Boer War Cartoon

I’ve backtracked a little for today’s cartoon. This is called THE BOER AT BAY and it appeared in July 1889, a couple of months before ethe outbreak of the war.

So we have a rather strangely dressed hunter, with a spear and a pack of dogs, having cornered a wild boar. It’s a visual pin, the cornered boar representing the Boers who were being forced into an impossible position by the British government, using the pretext of the cause of the Uitlanders as the pretext. If we look a little closer we can identify the main figures. The hunter’s hounds helpfully have Uitlanders written on their backs. The uitlanders were the people who had come to settle in the Transvaal, the majority being brought by the gold rush. They believed that the taxes charged them by the government were exorbitant especially considering that they were ineligible to vote until they had lived in the Transvaal for 14 years.

The wild boar has the white beard that was one of the most characteristic features of the appearance of the Transvaal president Paul Kruger. As for the hunter, well, the monocle certainly suggests that this is Joseph Chamberlain. Chamberlain, the father of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, was a very interesting man and an important political figure. He was a Birmingham businessman and his background was strikingly different from other top politicians of the day. Originally a Liberal MP, he split with the Liberals over his opposition to Gladstone’s goal of Home Rule for Ireland, creating the Liberal Unionists. They allied with the Conservative party ( to this day their official name is the Conservative and Unionist Party) and following the 1895 General Election he became Secretary of State for the Colonies, and it was from this position of power that he really helped push the Transvaal into the position where war became inevitable.

Chamberlain had been suspected of complicity with Cecil Rhodes in the planning of the Jameson Raid – how much he knew or was involved though remains a matter of speculation.

Sketchbook Challenge - Sketchbook filled

Well, I’ve finally filled my 8^th sketchbook of my sketchbook challenge, and there’s two months to go. I will be honest, having concentrated on copying political cartoons from the turn of the 20^th century meant that even when I took up my pens again having taken a break in the second half of April it has taken a long time, because it takes so long to copy a cartoon properly.

So what’s the verdict on this Nassau A5 sketchbook?

Well, it’s certainly from the cheaper end of the market. If you shop around you can get this sketchbook for less than £6. For that you get 62 sheets/124 pages of ivory coloured 130gsm paper. It’s 13x21cm, and looks very similar to a Moleskine sketchbook, although the corners aren’t at all rounded and there’s no document pocket attached to the inside back cover.

I primarily use fineliners and this isn’t that great for them. The lines you get aren’t as crisp as you get in books like the Seawhite, Leuchtturm or Moleskine. At 130 gsm it really should be able to cope with ordinary black fineliner, but on many drawings I got telltale dots showing through on the other side of the page. The paper buckles with watercolour but then I expected that anyway.

You can buy the book separately, but I received mine as part of a 12 piece urban sketching set I was gifted for Christmas 2024. And I don’t want to be too harsh about it, because the set also has fineliner pens , pencils, rubber and eraser, al for less than £12. Which maybe makes it a decent place to start if you’re thinking about giving urban sketching a try and want to get all the basics in one go. But I don’t plan on buying a Nassau sketchbook again any time soon myself.

Sunday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s Tenniel Boer War cartoon is another one depicting Transvaal president Paul Kruger. It was published in June 1900.

 

Its title is SHIFTING HIS CAPITAL. The caption reads :-

President Kruger had abandoned Pretoria on the near approach of the British Forces, taking with him, it was reported, bullion to the value of £2,000,000, which, he said, was simply required for State purposes.

When I read the caption I picture Tenniel rubbing his chin as he wrote it. The ‘he said’ might just as well have been followed by “but I don’t believe him’. By the end of May 1900 British Empire forces were nearing Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal.  They had captured Bloemfontein, the capital city of Orange Free State in March. Paul Kruger left on the 31^st March and the government on June 2^nd, a couple of days before Lord Roberts’ forces entered the city.

By September, Lord Roberts announced that the Transvaal was now annexed to the British Empire, and that the war was over. Yet it wasn’t. The Boers would continue to wage guerilla warfare until the war formally ended on 31^st May 1902.

Kruger did continue the business of the Boer Government despite the scepticism of the cartoon. Only until September, though, when his government voted for him to avoid capture by moving first to Laurenco Marques in Portuguese Mozambique and thence to Europe. He would never return to Pretoria, indeed he never returned to Africa at all. He did in July 1904 in Switzerland, but in December British authorities gave permission for his body to be buried in Pretoria in the Church Street Cemetery.

Saturday Boer War Cartoon

This next cartoon looks forward to possibly the most famous action of the 2^nd Boer War, namely the relief of Mafeking, the raising of the siege of the city. The cartoon was published on 9^th May 1900.

 

The title is THE ELEVENTH HOUR

The caption is

COLONEL BADEN POWELL (TO MAFEKING) “ALL RIGHT! CHEER UP! ‘BOBS’ IS A MAN OF HIS WORD!”

In the cartoon we see the leader of the British defenders of Mafeking, Robert Baden-Powell, yes, the same Baden-Powell who would create the Scouting movement after the war, consoling a thing, downcast lady, the allegorical personification of the city of Mafeking. They are in a ruined townscape, and Baden Powell is pointing to a notice on the war, with Lord Roberts’ promise to relieve the city by the 18^th May.

As it was, the relief came two days earlier, on the 16^th May and this was the trigger for wild celebrations as soon as the news reached Britain. So huge were the celebrations that for a while a word derived from the name of the city – ‘mafficking’ – became a slang verb for making merry.

Mafeking itself was a town in the British Cape Colony where Colonel Baden-Powell chose to keep stores for his cavalry corps. Immediately prior to the outbreak of the war he built up the defences of the town. In the end, the siege of Mafeking lasted longer than either of the other two Boer sieges of the war, those of Ladysmith and Kimberley, 217 days in total.

Baden-Powell became a public hero due to his leadership during the siege, being promoted to Major-General and made a Companion of the Order of the Bath. In more recent times his role had had just a little bit of a reappraisal, in particular the fact that he only made one attempt to break out from Mafeking despite the fact that at times the siege was not committing large numbers of Boer soldiers.

Baden-Powell later said that it was organising civilians and children that would later help him form plans for the boy scout organisation, his lasting legacy.

Friday Boer War Cartoon

This cartoon was published in March 1900. The title is Full of Resource. 

The caption is:-

PRESIDENT KRUGER (reading the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s speech on the Budget debate):-

“I am not going to bind myself as to what I will do on the termination of the War. I look first to the Transvaal.”

“Oh, DOES he? I know what I’M going to do on the termination of the war. I’M going through the BANKRUPTCY COURT!”

Paul Kruger was the president of the Transvaal Republic. His appearance made him something of a gift to cartoonists like John Tenniel. He wore a moustacheless, Amish style beard, and usually dressed in a plain black coat and top hat, a style of dress adopted by members of the Doppers, the religious sect to which he belonged. He’s a very interesting character. Kruger’s ancestors emigrated from Germany to the Cape Colony. When he was a child, he and his family took part in the Great Trek. This was the migration of Dutch speaking settlers who did not want to live under British colonial administration. When he had grown up, Kruger would serve the Transvaal republic as a soldier and then a statesman. He was a gifted orator, despite the fact that he (claimed he) had only ever read one book, the Bible. His nickname, certainly amongst the Boers, was Oom Paul – or – Uncle Paul.

I’m not totally sure that I completely understand the cartoon. By the time it was published in March 1900 the ineffective and unsuccessful Sir Redvers Buller had been replaced as British Commander in Chief by Lord Roberts, and the sieges of Kimberly and Ladysmith had been raised. British public opinion was mistakenly starting to feel that the war was all over bar the shouting. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had made this statement which seemed to be saying that the Boer Republics would be expected to pay reparations after the end of the war, without actually making a hard and fast commitment to the policy. Kruger’s response in the caption seems to be saying – well, there will be no chance of that happening since there will be no wealth left here to take. I’m unsure, though, on exactly what Tenniel is saying. The expression on Kruger’s face seems to suggest he isn’t unhappy about this. Likewise, it seems to be more of a criticism of the Government’s attitude, suggesting that the idea of forcing the Boers to pay for the cost of the war is pie in the sky. As indeed it turned out to be.

The 2^nd Boer War was the most expensive war Britain had ever fought and remained so until the First World War. Far from imposing war reparations, the Treaty of Vereeniging which officially ended the war saw the British government commit to paying £3 million for reconstruction in the two former republics and for repatriation of the Boers.

Thursday Boer War Cartoon

In March 1900, Sir John Tenniel published this cartoon in Punch. He has a different target in this cartoon.

 

The cartoon has the title “Who said “Dead”?”. The cartoon shows a donkey running away for its life from a roaring lion emerging from a cave. The donkey has ‘Continental Press’ written on its back. By March 1900 the sieges of Kimberley and Ladysmith had been relieved and the British and Empire army under the new commander in chief, Lord Roberts, had begun to win some successes. The message of the cartoon seems pretty much to be that the British and Empire forces have now roused themselves to their warlike best, and proven to the world – well, to Europe at least – that the reports of the death of the Empire have been greatly exaggerated.

Portraying the European media as a donkey shows a certain contempt for them – they are donkeys, or asses, fools in other words. The European reactions to the circumstances of the Boer War were pretty much universally condemning of the British actions in provoking the war, and British Imperialism. There was just a little whiff of hypocrisy about this considering that some of the countries that were the strongest critics had also been willing and enthusiastic participants in the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’ themselves.

Wednesday Boer War Cartoon

I haven’t found any Tenniel cartoons referring to the so-called ‘Black Week’ of 10-17^th December 1899, when British forces suffered three major defeats to Boer forces. Following a further defeat in January in the Battle of Spion Kop (if you ever wondered why part of Liverpool’s Anfield stadium – and some other grounds – have the name the Kop, they were named after this battle) Redvers Buller was replaced as Commander in Chief by Lord Roberts. In March 1900, this cartoon was published in Punch.

With the situation seemingly changed, Tenniel reverted to the figure of John Bull to represent the British (English) nation. The heading is “Never Say Die!” and the long caption underneath reads,

“JOHN BULL (to himself in the “Mark Tapley” vein). – “NOW, MR. JOHN BULL, JUST YOU ATTEND TO WHAT I’VE GOT TO SAY. THINGS HAVE BEEN LOOKING ABOUT AS BAD AS THEY COULD LOOK, OLD MAN. YOU’LL NOT HAVE SUCH ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY FOR SHOWING YOUR JOLLY DISPOSITION, MY FINE FELLOW, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE. AND THEREFORE, JOHN B., NOW’S YOUR TIME TO COME OUT STRONG; NOW OR NEVER!” And J.B. has come out strong at Kimberley and after.)-Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxiii.

Mark Tapley, as the captions suggests, is a character in Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit whose speciality is deliberately looking on the bright side and staying cheerful in the most awful of situations. The cartoon, without actually saying that things have been going very badly for the British and Empire army, pretty much concedes this. Even the notice behind John Bull, while trumpeting Lord Roberts’ advance and the relief of Kimberley still admits that there have been unexpectedly heavy casualty lists. With the rather smug look on John Bull’s face, you get the idea that the feeling the cartoon is trying to convey is a message of nothing to worry about folks, normal service has been resumed. Which would turn out to be misplaced confidence.

Although the coming months would see the relief of Mafeking and the occupation of the two Boer capitals, Pretoria and Bloemfontein, the war was actually a long way from being over. Indeed, Lord Roberts announced that the war was over on 3^rd September 1900 and formally annexed the South African Republic. But actually the Boers would continue to fight, only changing their tactics to wage a pretty successful guerilla campaign against supply and communication lines.

Tuesday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s Tenniel Boer War cartoon I’ve copied was published on 20^th December 1899 and it’s entitled “The Sullied White Flag”.

 

THE SULLIED WHITE FLAG

JOHN BULL “IF YOU ABUSE THAT FLAG, I WON’T ANSWER FOR MY MEN.”

The caption is :-

JOHN BULL “IF YOU ABUSE THAT FLAG, I WON’T ANSWER FOR MY MEN.”

Now, I’ve tried hard to find out exactly which specific incident prompted this cartoon, and all I’ve managed to find out is that there was some incident involving a flag of truce in Mafeking, which was under siege at the time. What happened, I have not to this point been able to find out.

However, I think that the message within the images seems pretty clear. The Boer on the left looks sly and shifty. His eyes particularly are dark and evil looking. If anything his posture suggests that he is cringing away from John Bull. While John Bull himself looks clean, upright, immaculate and his revolver is pointed towards the ground and not at the back of the Boer. The relationship between the two figures suggests that the British have been having the upper hand, while the Boers have to resort to subterfuge. Yet up to this point the Boers had very much the better of the fighting and action. When I look at the caption I am irresistibly reminded of President Donald Trump threatening there would be ‘no more Mr. Nice Guy’ towards Iran a week or two ago, with much the same effect. At best it’s a misrepresentation of the state of the war at this time.

I’ve no doubt that I haven’t seen every cartoon John Tenniel made between October and December of 1899, but I haven’t seen any cartoon he made in this period which even acknowledged any setbacks suffered by the British army. Tenniel could be a trenchant critic of politicians and governments on purely domestic issues, but when it came to foreign relations he was strongly pro-British. After he was knighted in 1893 at the age of 73, it probably shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that he would be a strong supporter of the official line on the war.

Monday Boer War Cartoon

This next Boer War cartoon is from November 29th1899. We see a lion advancing through a rocky southern African landscape, underneath which is the title ADVANCING. There is no further caption.

 

To me, this cartoon really displays misplaced confidence. The lion is surely the British lion, and I’ve said before that when Tenniel uses this particular representation of Britain he is usually doing so to stress the power and might of Britain and the British Empire. By the time that the cartoon was published, Boer forces were besieging Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking and public opinion in Britain pretty much demanded that actions were taken to end the sieges. The advance that the cartoon seems to be referring to may well have been Lord Methuen’s advance with three brigades with the intention of raising the siege of Kimberley. On 23^rd November 1899 the forces ran into 2000 entrenched Boers on Belmont Kopje (hill). Poor tactics and inaccurate maps resulted in large casualties, although the British could claim victory of a sort after eventually driving the tenacious Boers into retreat.

However, Methuen’s forces would suffer losses and then a serious defeat on 11^th December in Magersfontein. As for Kimberley, the siege would continue until the following February. 

Sunday Boer War Cartoon

Today’s John Tenniel Boer War cartoon is another from 1899, published on 1^st November, right at the time when large numbers of soldiers were being sent to South Africa on ships.

 

Jack Tar “GOOD LUCK, MATE! YOU’RE GOIN’ TO DO THE JOB ON LAND.
IF THERE’S ANYTHING WANTED AT SEA – AGAINST OTHER PARTIES – I’M ON!”

The title is “TO THOSE IT MAY CONCERN”. The caption beneath this is –

Jack Tar “GOOD LUCK, MATE! YOU’RE GOIN’ TO DO THE JOB ON LAND. IF THERE’S ANYTHING WANTED AT SEA – AGAINST OTHER PARTIES – I’M ON!”

The message seems pretty straightforward, a message of support for the troops heading off to war and also one of confidence in them. As for what the sailor says, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but perhaps this is meant as a reminder that Britain had the most powerful navy in the world. The mention of other parties suggests an awareness that international opinion was pretty solidly against the British Empire, and this is a recognition of the Royal Navy as a deterrent to other countries becoming involved militarily, which I have no doubt that it was.

Other countries did not intervene officially. However, volunteer units who fought for the Boers were formed from Dutch, German and Irish volunteers, and volunteers came from many other parts of Europe. The influx of volunteers began to arrive immediately with the declaration of war and would continue at the rate of about 600 men a month.

Again, maybe I’m reading too much into what appears to be a pretty straightforward cartoon, but I do, with the benefit of hindsight, see an overconfidence here. Despite the lessons of the First Boer War, less than a decade earlier, it does seem to be true that at all levels of British society people did seem to genuinely believe that the British Empire army would just quickly steamroller the Boers into submission in a few weeks.

Didn’t happen

Saturday - Boer War Cartoon

The next John Tenniel Boer War cartoon I’ve copied was published just a few days before war was declared. Here it is.

JOHN BULL (to Orange Free State) “STAND ASIDE YOUNG MAN-
I’VE NO QUARREL WITH YOU!”

 

JOHN BULL (to Orange Free State) “STAND ASIDE YOUNG MAN- I’VE NO QUARREL WITH YOU!”

It’s titled A Word to the Un-Wise. Basically this is Britain, in the shape of John Bull, warning Orange Free State not to get involved in the looming conflict with the Republic of Transvaal. The caption – I’ve no quarrel with you! – is disingenuous. It was never a question that Orange Free State would not be involved in the Boer War, but even if it had not been I can’t believe that the British Empire would not have annexed the republic again even without the excuse of the war. As it was, though, the two Boer Republics had concluded a military pact in 1897.

I find it interesting that Tenniel chose to depict John Bull in army uniform. The subtext to me seems to be – look, this war is going to happen, and if you have any sense whatsoever you’ll keep out of our way, or we’ll crush you like we’re going to crush them. – The caption, calling Orange Free State ‘young man’ is very patronising. Also, the Boer from the Transvaal is the only one of the three figures with a visible gun, a way of suggesting without saying so outright that it is Boer aggression that can be blamed for bringing the countries to the brink of war.

Fair? No, I don’t think so. With hindsight, following the Jameson Raid, and with the British Government’s refusal to compromise on terms for addressing the grievances of the Uitlanders, war was pretty much inevitable.

Friday - Boer War Cartoon

My 4^th Tenniel cartoon from the Boer War is this one titled “The Sinews of War”. It was published in Punch magazine on 18^th October 1899, exactly one week after war was declared.

JOHN BULL. “FIRE AWAY JOE! I’M WITH YOU! I’LL LOOK AFTER THE AMMUNITION!”

You can see John Bull (for more about this allegorical personification of England see my previous post) standing behind a British soldier, sat at his machine gun, in what is presumably a South African landscape. The caption reads,

JOHN BULL. “FIRE AWAY JOE! I’M WITH YOU! I’LL LOOK AFTER THE AMMUNITION!”

This pretty much reflects a few beliefs about the situation at the outset of the war. The British public were overwhelmingly in support of the war when this cartoon was published, but as the war progressed the tide of opinion would turn against it, especially when Emily Hobhouse published her findings on the concentration camps in 1901. In the second half of 1900 support was strong enough to see the Conservative Party win what was nicknamed the Khaki Election on the back of recent victories, but when it became clear that the war was not over and the Boers were continuing to fight, public support waned.

As regards weaponry and ammunition, there is some justification to the claim asserted here that Britain would supply the army well. The guns and artillery was probably as good as the German weaponry with which the Boers had rearmed during the build up to the war. Crucially though it wasn’t significantly better, while this cartoon reflects the mistaken belief that the British army would have a technological advantage.