Tim Clayton: James Gillray and a Revolution in Satire (1792)

Travels Through Time

As today’s guest Tim Clayton explains, 'the late eighteenth-century mixed the extremely crude with the extremely fine in a fascinating sort of way.’ The grand master of this potent concoction was the greatest political caricaturist of modern times: James Gillray.

Gillray worked in raucous, restless times. He began in the wake of the American War of Independence and, having charted each twist and turn of the French Revolution, he died a short time before the Battle of Waterloo.

In this time he pioneered a fearless new brand of political satire. No one was spared. He lampooned King George III; his son the Prince of W(h)ales; the prime minister William Pitt the Younger, and all the prominent cultural and political figures in London life.

But how did he get away with it? What was his true motivation? How clever really was James Gillray? In this episode the historian Tim Clayton takes us back to 1792, a testing year in Gillray's career, to find out.

The characters and stories that feature in this episode of Travels Through Time form part of Clayton’s latest book. James Gillray: A Revolution in Satire is out now.

Show notes

Scene One: February/March 1792 London and Hannah Humphrey’s house at 18 Old Bond Street.

Scene Two: 21 May 1792. The Royal Proclamation against seditious writing.

Scene Three: December 1792. The French King is on trial and Gillray releases his series of ‘pro bono publico’ prints.

Memento: A fire screen, painted on both sides by Gillray, as presented by the artist to Hannah Humphrey.

People/Social

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Tim Clayton

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

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