'The Chaplain' — Archdeacon Wilberforce

Spy (Leslie Ward) depicts Archdeacon Wilberforce — chaplain to the House of Commons and grandson of the abolitionist William Wilberforce — in full clerical black robes bearing the House of Commons badge on the skirt, white bands at his collar and cuffs, one hand tucked into his gown with studied composure. The caption reads simply 'The Chaplain.' Ward's mild satirical note is social rather than physiognomic, gently deflating ecclesiastical dignity through the subject's rather stiff, self-satisfied sideways stance. The hereditary prestige embedded in the Wilberforce name — abolitionist sainthood converted into Establishment preferment — sits unspoken behind the joke.