Alfred Chichele Plowden, 'Wit & Wisdom'

Leslie Ward ('Spy') portrays Alfred Chichele Plowden (1844–1914), the Marylebone police-court magistrate celebrated for his sardonic bench-side manner and published reminiscences. The full-length chromolithograph shows an elderly gentleman in a dark frock coat and striped waistcoat, pince-nez dangling from one hand, the other thrust into a trouser pocket — the studied nonchalance of a man accustomed to command a room without raising his voice. The caption 'Wit & Wisdom' flatters a magistrate known for pithy pronouncements on London's poor and criminal classes, a wit that contemporaries applauded but that often carried the breezy class condescension of Edwardian police-court culture. No ethnic caricature is present. Ward's draftsmanship is characteristically economical: posture and accessory do all the biographical work.