'From Eton to the Stage' — Mr Charles Hawtrey

Spy's chromolithograph presents the actor-manager Charles Hawtrey in profile, one hand raised to his brow in a theatrical gesture of world-weary surprise, the other tucked into his trouser pocket. He wears white-tie evening dress with a broad silk lapel and a decorative pin — the costume of the West End drawing room he made his natural habitat. The caption, 'From Eton to the Stage', signals social descent, or at least social eccentricity, in an era when a gentleman's education was expected to lead somewhere more respectable than the footlights. Ward's mockery is class-inflected, teasing a well-born man for preferring applause to propriety.