Biographies

George Cruickshank (1792 – 1878)

He was born in London. His father, Isaac Cruikshank, was a caricaturist who died in 1811 as a result of his alcoholism. After a brief education at an elementary school in Edgeware, Cruikshank set himself up as a caricaturist in London. He met Dickens and became friendly with him, illustrating two of his books, Sketches by Boz (1836) and Oliver Twist (1838) and also suppling the drawings for Bentley’s Miscellany, a journal edited by Dickens. He did political sketches for both the radicals and the tories, and many powerful attacks on the use of alcohol.