'Chaplain to the Commons': Frederick William Farrar

Ward presents the Reverend F. W. Farrar — Dean of Canterbury, bestselling author of Eric, or Little by Little, and then Chaplain to the House of Commons — in sharp profile, his considerable girth accentuated by the clerical frock coat cinched with a watch-chain. The caption, "Chaplain to the Commons", is deadpan: a reminder that this celebrated moraliser served Parliament's notoriously worldly members. Ward's caricature is affectionate rather than savage — the flushed, bald head and side-whiskers are exaggerated but not cruel. The political sub-text is mild: a famous Victorian preacher of earnest evangelical sentiment, domesticated into a constitutional ornament.