Bunbury, Henry William

Henry William Bunbury (1 July 1750 – 7 May 1811) was an English caricaturist. The second son of Sir William Bunbury, 5th Baronet (see Bunbury baronets), of Mildenhall, Suffolk, he came of an old Norman family. He was educated at Westminster School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and soon showed a talent for drawing, especially for humorous subjects. He temporarily left Cambridge to embark on a tour of Europe, during which time he may have studied in Rome; he returned to school in 1771 but is not known to have completed a degree. His European travels inspired a series of caricatures mocking foreigners, notably his La Cuisine de la Poste, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1770. His more serious efforts were no great success, but his caricatures are as famous as those of his contemporaries Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray, good examples being his A Long Story (1782), Country Club (1788), and Barber's Shop (1803). Most of his caricatures are described in detail in the Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. He was a popular character, and the friend of most of the notabilities of his day, whom he never...