John Bull
Sign in to savenational personification of the United Kingdom
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- national personification
- Given name
- John
- Gender
- male
- Image
- Uncle Sam and the Alluring Sausage of Hawaii.jpg
Show 5 more facts
- Commons category
- John Bull
- described by source
- New International Encyclopedia
- Commons gallery
- John Bull
- different from
- Jean-Paul L'Allier
- represents
- United Kingdom
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~9 min read
Encyclopedic overview
World War I recruitment poster
John Bull is a national personification of England and Britain, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged, country-dwelling, jolly and matter-of-fact man. He originated in satirical works of the early-18th century and would come to stand for English liberty in opposition to revolutionaries. He was popular through the 18th and 19th centuries until the time of the First World War, when he generally stopped being seen as representative of the "common man".
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “John Bull” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.