William Tindal Robertson, 'Brighton'

Signed Spy (Leslie Ward), this chromolithograph caricatures Sir William Tindal Robertson — physician, justice of the peace, and MP — beneath the single-word caption Brighton, the constituency he represented. Ward renders Robertson as a stout, balding figure in a black frock coat and striped trousers, one hand planted on his hip, the other resting on a cane. Round tinted spectacles and a walrus moustache dominate an oversized, florid head — the classic Spy formula of inflating the face while shrinking the legs to produce gentle, socially safe mockery. The composition carries no sharp political argument; Robertson was a medical reformer rather than a controversialist, and the plate reads as fond civic portrait more than satire.