The Yale University Library presents
Tim Clayton, historian with special expertise in printed images of the long eighteenth century, Martin Rowson, multi award winning political cartoonist, illustrator, graphic novelist, writer, performer and poet and Steve Bell, who for 40 years from 1981 wrote and drew the If… strip in the Guardian, covering every war since the Falklands crisis of 1982:
“The Limits of Free Speech: Gillray, The Royals and Censorship” and Panel Discussion.
For a decade between 1785 and 1795 George III and Queen Charlotte were the most prominent faces in Gillray’s satire, and the scandalous love lives of their children added piquancy to a print culture that was distinctly libertine in tone. But the licence of printsellers provoked a backlash from the conservative wing of the establishment, especially after the French Revolution, and in late 1795 it became illegal to caricature the King. It is often claimed that caricaturists were immune to legal action, but some printsellers were punished and many prints were altered, suppressed or destroyed at this time. In this talk I shall discuss some of the liberties that caricaturists took and some of the penalties they came to face as they tested the extent of the freedom of the press – a burning issue then that remains highly relevant today.