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HomeVanity Fair: Men of the DayMen of the Day: The Vanity Fair Caricatures › 'Police' — Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson
'Police' — Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson by Carlo Pellegrini
Public domain · digitally restored by ComicBooks.com
Men of the Day: The Vanity Fair Caricatures

'Police' — Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson

Carlo Pellegrini · March 6, 1875

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') presents Henderson, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1869 to 1886, as a lean, slightly stooped civilian gentleman rather than a uniformed officer. He wears a long grey frock coat, brown trousers, and a silk top hat, hands buried in pockets — the image of administrative authority dressed in bourgeois anonymity. The caption reads simply 'Police.' Pellegrini's caricature elongates the figure modestly and emphasizes Henderson's reddish mutton-chop whiskers and drooping moustache, sharpening the face into weary self-importance. The composition's political argument is quiet but pointed: London's police chief passes for any prosperous gentleman on the street, power concealed beneath respectability — a wry comment on Victorian policing's preference for plainclothes discretion over transparent accountability.

About this artifact

Creator
Carlo Pellegrini
Date
March 6, 1875
Rights
Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
Restoration
Digitally restored and hosted by ComicBooks.com.

Part of our mission to preserve and restore the public-domain heritage of the medium.