WWI British recruiting poster featuring John Bull. A paunchy, white man in a top hat and Victorian dress with a Union Jack waistcoat points at the reader, and words on the poster ask, “Who’s Absent? Is it you?” Soldiers in khaki uniforms stand in the background along with group of buildings on fire.
11 March 2021
John Bull is the personification of the English nation, and sometimes more broadly, all of Britain. He is to England what Uncle Sam is to the United States. But unlike his American counterpart, we can pin down the origin of John Bull with precision.
He was created by satirist John Arbuthnot in a series of pamphlets published in 1712 that present an allegory of the War of Spanish Succession as a lawsuit. The first of these pamphlets is The Law Is a Bottomless Pit, which has John Bull (England) suing Lewis Baboon (France) over the estate of Lord Strutt (Spain):
It is widely observed by a great Philosopher, That Habit is a second Nature: This was verify’d in the Case of John Bull, who from an honest and plain Tradesman, had got such a haunt about the Courts of Justice and such a Jargon of Law-words, that he concluded himself as able a Lawyer, as any that pleaded at the Bar or sat on the Bench.
The pamphlets were exceedingly popular, and references to them and to the character of John Bull can be found regularly in the ensuing decades. And by mid-century people were using John Bull to refer to England outside the context of Arbuthnot’s satire. For instance, in a 26 March 1748 letter, philosopher David Hume, writing from Koblenz in what is now Germany, criticizes the prejudices and provinciality of England:
Tis of this Country, Mr Addison speaks when he calls the People Nations of Slaves, by Tyranny debas'd: Their Makers Image more than half defacd. And he adds that the Soldiers were Hourly instructed, as they urge their Toyl, To prize their Queen & love their native Soil. If any Foot Soldier cou'd have more ridiculous national Prejudices than the Poet, I shou'd be much surpriz'd. Be assurd, there is not a finer Country in the World; nor are there any Signs of Poverty among the People. But John Bull's Prejudices are ridiculous; as his Insolence is intolerable.
In drawings, John Bull has been typically portrayed as a paunchy, middle-aged, white man in middle-class attire: a blue tailcoat, waistcoat, and shallow-crowned top hat. The color of the waistcoat has changed over the years, originally buff-colored, it shifted to red in the Georgian era, and since the twentieth century has usually had a Union Jack pattern. He epitomizes the ideal of a prosperous, middle-class Englishman.
Sources:
Arbuthnot, John. The Law Is a Bottomless Pit. Exemplified in the Case of Lord Strutt, John Bull, Nicholas Frog, and Lewis Baboon. London: John Morphew, 1712, 8. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Hume, David. “Letter 64” (26 March 1748). The Letters of David Hume, vol. 1 of 2. J. Y. T. Greig, ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932, 121. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2019, s.v. John Bull, n.
Image credit: 1915, Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, Andrew Reid and Co. Public domain image.