The Times/1883/Obituary/Richard Doyle

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OBITUARY.

We regret to announce the death of Mr. Richard Doyle, which took place yesterday morning at 4 o'clock. He had been at the Athenæum Club on the preceding evening and fell down in a fit, in the hall, about 9 o'clock. Medical help was immediately in attendance, but with no result, and between 10 and 11 o'clock he was conveyed to his residence. From the moment of the first attach he never recovered consciousness. He was not very far short of 60 years of age, having been born about the year 1825. He inherited his artistic and humorous qualities from his father. Mr. John Doyle, the reputed author of those “Political Sketches by H. B.” which tool the town by storm in the days of Lords Grey and Melbourne, and which, in the absence of photography, familiarized the public with the features of Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Brougham, O'Connell, and Lord John Russell. Mr. Richard Doyle first became favourably known to the public as the contributor of those sketches illustrative of “Ye Manners and Customs of Ye Englishe” which appeared in Punch 44 or 45 years ago, and which delicately satirized the foibles and fashions of English society, whether in the park, at a ball, on the race-course, or at Exeter-hall. His family being all devoted Roman Catholics and personal friends of Cardinal Wiseman, Mr. Doyle, most conscientiously and at a very great pecuniary sacrifice, abandoned his connexion with Punch in consequence of its hostility to the so-called “Papal aggression.” Since that time we have heard of Mr. Doyle only at long intervals, as, for instance, in 1854, when he published his “Continental Tour of Brown, Jones, and Robinson or when he employed his graceful pencil in illustrating some popular “Fairy Tales,” or the Cornhill Magazine, or “The Newcomes” for his friend Thackeray.