John Bull

A satirical prototype of the British national character in literature and political caricature. He was created in 1772 by the Scottish mathematician and doctor John Arbuthnot as a political allegory, under the title The History of John Bull, in which the English cloth merchant, together with the Dutch laundry dealer Nicholas Frog, fight it out with the French Lewis Baboon (Louis XIV). John Bull rapidly developed into a popular symbol of British foreign policy and economic interests. From the time of the Napoleonic wars he c…