Punch (magazine)
British weekly magazine of humour and satire
Punch, or The London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration. Artists at Punch included John Tenniel who worked for the magazine from 1850 and was its chief cartoonist from 1864 to 1901. The editors took the anarchic puppet Mr Punch, of Punch and Judy, as their mascot—the character appears in many magazine covers—with the character also an inspiration for the magazine's name.
With its satire of the contemporary, social, and political scene, Punch became a household name in Victorian Britain. Sales of 40,000 copies a week by 1850 rose above 100,000 by 1910. After the 1940s, when its circulation peaked, it went into a long decline, closing in 1992. It was revived in 1996, but closed again in 2002.
History
Punch was founded on 17 July 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells, on an initial investment of £25 (equivalent to £2,242 in 2025). It was jointly edited by Mayhew and Mark Lemon.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Punch (magazine)” as british weekly magazine of humour and satire. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as british weekly magazine of humour and satire. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q849759. VIAF identifies the subject as 136819692. The Library of Congress control number is n2005020518. 6 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1841, 1850, 1864 and 1901.
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This entry incorporates text from “Punch (magazine)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.